Let's Go Safari!
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: AU, short story, follows "Shadow and Ash".  Naruto travels to the fabled Safari Zone, only to find it closed! Who's the guy in the orange glasses? And a mysterious thief is lurking in the park...  Read, review, and enjoy!
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Naruto_ or _Pokémon_. If I did, I'd have a lot of money…but I don't. So don't bother suing, you won't get anything out of it.

**Notes:** (Crossover, could be a crack!fic if you want) Here there be Naruto characters and Pokémon monsters! This is a _short story_ which takes place about a month after the events of "Shadow and Ash".

Read, review, and enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Let's Go Safari!<strong>

_Part I_

Naruto stopped short when the dense forest abruptly ended and opened up into low rolling hills covered in waist-high grass. At first he'd thought that Grass Country was completely misnamed; it had seemed just as forested as it was on the Fire Country side of the border. But now, after walking most of the day, he could see where it had gotten its name.

The summer sun had bleached most of the grass a golden color and it rippled like water as stiff breezes brushed over it. Everything looked the same as he scanned the horizon. The only break in the endless hills of grass was a dark blot near the horizon on his right.

_That must be it, then._

He hitched his pack higher on his shoulders and followed the path out of the trees and into the grass, hoping to reach his destination before it got dark.

_Safari Zone, here I come!_

* * *

><p>The sky was stained red with the setting sun by the time Naruto made it into civilization. It wasn't really a town, just a collection of shops, cheap lodging, restaurants, and a Pokémon Center. The real draw to this spot was the Safari Zone—the second biggest on the continent.<p>

It was on the list of place that his mother hadn't gone but wished that she had, and after about a week of aimless wanderings he'd decided to come here. So he'd saved up his money and challenged a few trainers to get more so that he could afford the entry fee. And now he was ready to go and try his luck at no-battle-capturing rare pokémon.

But when he reached the metal gates that led into the main safari building, he stopped dead and gaped at the sign hung there.

_"CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS, sorry for the inconvenience!"_

Naruto kicked at the dirt and barely suppressed a snarl of frustration.

"I walked all this way for nothing!"

He sulked and steamed in front of the chained gates for about ten minutes before turning away. It was getting late and he needed to find a bed for the night before he was stuck camping out in the sea of grass. Shoving his hands into his pockets he trudged back towards the Pokémon Center, hoping for a free bunk for the night.

_Maybe the renovations will be finished soon,_ he thought. _Then I'll just hang around and wait. But if not…I'll have to find something else to do._

Now that he wasn't so focused on getting to the Safari Zone and signing up for a hunt, he noticed that more than half of the businesses around had closed up early. With the Zone closed for renovations there probably weren't enough customers drawn in for them to make their usual profits. There really weren't any other people walking the dirt streets either, giving the place the feel of a ghost town.

Naruto stepped through the double doors of the Pokémon Center and into the lobby and did a double-take. He knew almost half the people milling around there. Ino and Sakura were sitting on a couch on either side of Hinata and pouring over a magazine while the Hyuuga girl looked sort of uncomfortable. Chouji sat at a table near the vending machines and was devouring a bag of chips while Shikamaru sat next to him and napped. Shino looked like he was researching something on one of the computers. Sasuke sat in an armchair (probably so that no girls could sit next to him) and stared off into space sullenly. And Kiba was sitting up against a wall, looking bored, and talking to his growlithe, Akamaru.

_Wow, the only person missing from my class is Sai._

He stood in the doorway, frozen and blinking owlishly until someone tried to come in the doors behind him.

"Would you move it?"

Naruto jumped and shuffled aside with a hasty apology, allowing an older teenage boy with red-brown hair and gray eyes to trudge past him.

"Hey, look!" Ino, attracted by his little scene by the door, was off the couch and heading towards him within seconds. "Naruto's here, too! Now all we need is for Sai to show up and we'll have a class reunion!"

Before Naruto could even open his mouth to say hello, the blonde girl had his arm and was dragging him behind her. She shoved him on the couch next to Hinata, who squeaked in alarm, and then trapped him by squeezing in-between him and the couch arm. Chouji paused in his snacking to wake Shikamaru up, Sasuke stopped spacing out to glance in Naruto's direction, Shino peeked over his shoulder briefly before returning to his research, and Kiba and Akamaru hurried over to the couch.

"Fancy seeing you here!" Kiba grinned toothily. "Didn't that sign on the gate piss you off?"

"It's been a while," Sakura waved. "How many badges do you have now?"

"How have you been?" Chouji asked as he approached. "Want a chip?"

"What sort of places have you been?" Ino demanded, curiosity and excitement blazing in her eyes. "What sort of things have you been up to? Have any of your pokémon evolved? Do you have any new pokémon? Are they cute?"

"Troublesome," Shikamaru sighed and collapsed into another armchair, across from the couch.

"…What question am I supposed to answer first?" Naruto wondered, rubbing at the back of his head.

Hinata sat beside him, stiff as a board, the only thing moving were her index fingers as they frantically fidgeted.

"Any of mine!" Ino said. "So start answering!"

"Ino-pig, quit being so nosy!" Sakura hissed from around Hinata.

Fearing that an argument could erupt between the two girls, and having no wish to be stuck between them while they shouted at each other, Naruto whipped out three of his five pokéballs. The first pokémon he released was Sandy, who had been a vibrava that last time that Ino had seen her. Then came Gamakichi, who had evolved into a toxicroak only a few days previously so none of his classmates had seen him in this form. And finally there was Demon.

"Eeee!" Ino squealed, slipped off the couch arm, and kneeled beside the silver ninetales with shining eyes. "I thought he looked amazing before, but he's beautiful now! Absolutely stunning! Can I borrow him again?"

Demon's lips twitched towards a snarl and the fire fox leaned away from her.

"No, he really didn't like it last time," Naruto answered hurriedly. _If I lend him to her again, Demon will never forgive me._

"Aww…" Ino pouted. The blonde girl turned away, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder to look over his flygon. "You have a dragon now?"

"Yeah…I've had her for a while." Naruto rubbed at his scarred cheek and frowned at the girl. "You didn't like her because she looked like a bug."

"That icky bug turned into a dragon?" Ino blinked. "Wow."

"She was never a bug type," Naruto muttered.

"You look pretty cool now," Ino smiled and patted the desert dragon on her green forearm.

Sandy blinked and tilted her head in confusion at the drastic change in attitude.

"Hi there," Chouji greeted Gamakichi and offered the toxicroak a handful of barbeque-flavored chips. "Want some?"

The fighting toad graciously accepted the snack, careful to not scratch the boy with clawed middle finger, and happily munched away at the chips.

"So there of your pokémon have evolved since we last saw them," Sakura said thoughtfully.

"Shiitake did, too," Naruto added. "He's a breloom now."

"Ah, that crazy mushroom," Ino sighed as she returned to her seat on the couch arm. "How is that thing doing?"

"He's alright," Naruto replied, squirming so that he could get his backpack off. "Still crazy, but not as bad as he was as a shroomish."

"Good, I'm glad that little terror is at home with you," Ino nodded.

Akamaru had crept over to Demon and now the growlithe was sniffing at the sliver ninetales.

"What about new pokémon?" Kiba asked. "Did you catch anything new?"

"Hmm…" Naruto tapped his chin thoughtfully as he reviewed his monster collection. "I have an abra and an aerodactyl—"

"No way!" Kiba snorted. "Aerodactyl are fossil pokémon—extinct in the wild! There's no way you could catch one."

"Believe it!" Naruto retorted. "I'll go call him up right now if you need proof."

"I b-believe you, N-Naruto-kun," Hinata squeaked so quietly that he almost didn't hear her.

"You're bluffing," Kiba scoffed. "Don't bother getting up. I won't embarrass you by making you retrieve a monster that you don't have."

Naruto saw red. There wasn't enough room for him to jump to his feet, but as he struggled up he opened his mouth to start yelling indignantly—

"Don't you dare start a fight in here, Naruto," Sakura warned in a very dangerous tone of voice. "If you do, we could all get evicted and have to sleep out on the prairie!"

"Yeah, tell us what else you have," Ino demanded. "Surely you've caught more than an abra and a theoretical aerodactyl since we've last seen you."

The blond boy scowled at all of them. His pride smarted painfully from Kiba's complete disbelief. And it was made worse by his inability to yell at Kiba and make his stung pride feel better. But as his fingers dug angrily into the fabric of his pack as it rested on his lap, an idea managed to rise up through his pissed off fuming.

"I do have this," he grumbled and removed the incubation capsule that contained his pokémon egg.

"Now that's cool," Kiba grinned crookedly.

"Where did you get that?" Sakura wondered.

"Oooh, what's it gonna hatch into?" Ino asked.

"My mom gave it to me, and I don't know," Naruto answered, still pouting a bit.

"Where did your mom get it?" Chouji inquired around a mouthful of chips.

"No idea," Naruto shrugged.

"When will it hatch?" Shino asked from behind the couch, nearly making Naruto throw the two-tone egg.

"Soon," the scar-cheeked boy shrugged again.

"Like, how soon?" Ino demanded.

Naruto made a face. "I dunno, a couple of days?"

"I hope it's tomorrow," Ino grumbled. "I want to know what's in that egg."

"Why does it have to be tomorrow?" Naruto asked.

"Because we've been here waiting for the Safari Zone to re-open for over a month," Ino replied. "If it doesn't open in the next few days, we're leaving."

* * *

><p>The night guard strolled along his patrol route, his flashlight zigzagging ahead of him. With the Safari Zone closed to the public he'd been sure that his duty would've been cut or shifted somehow. But before his boss had thought up such an idea, the thefts had started.<p>

It was almost always food that was taken, either leftovers from the construction workers' lunches or snack food from the café. Sometimes, though, little trinkets and toys from the gift shop would disappear. And no matter how he and his security colleagues patrolled and searched, they couldn't find the culprit. Half the time the security cameras didn't even see anything.

Most of what they did catch on camera was blurry or indistinct, but one of the earliest thefts had yielded a few clear frames.

_It has to be some kind of joke,_ the guard thought as he scanned the darkness around him. _Some kind of elaborate hoax, perpetrated by a bunch of bored teenagers. There's no way that our little thief is a—_

He paused mid-step as a creaking sound reached his ears. For a moment he was frozen. Then he exploded into a sprint, racing around to the back of the Safari Zone Café. The beam of his flashlight darted over the brick wall until it fixated on an open window.

_There!_

Struggling to quiet his pants, he used his master set of keys to unlock the back door. Then he drew his nightstick from his belt and cautiously edged into the dark kitchen. Moving slowly and methodically, he surveyed the entire room and peered through all the open doors. But when he reached the pantry, he ground his teeth in frustration.

A cardboard box that evidently contained candy bars had been torn open and several wrappers were scattered over the floor…and the culprit was nowhere in sight.

The security man took a few minutes to curse with great feeling and creativity before calming enough to make his report by radio. Shortly thereafter other night guards converged on the scene. They milled around, careful not to disturb anything, and debated how the mysterious thief had gotten away so cleanly yet again while they waited for a supervisor.

None of them noticed the pair of blue eyes that watched them from the cover of the trees.

_"Hehehee~!"_

* * *

><p>The sun had just cleared the horizon when Hinata descended from the upstairs dormitory of the Pokémon Center to get some breakfast. She'd already washed and dressed, unlike most of the other early risers who were already in the small cafeteria eating cereal, bagels, muffins, pastries, or toast. After selecting a cinnamon bun, toasting a few slices of bread, and taking a cup of apple juice she retreated to one of the smaller tables to spread strawberry jam over her bread and eat.<p>

She, Shino, and Kiba had been waiting outside the Safari Zone for over two weeks now. They'd come for the chance to acquire rare pokémon and perhaps even some of the new pokémon that were supposedly coming to their lands. But, like Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji who had arrived before them, and Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto who had arrived after, they have been greatly disappointed to find the pokémon game park closed with no hint as to when it would re-open.

_Ino-san, Shikamaru-san, and Chouji-san will be leaving soon,_ Hinata mused as she chewed on her jam-covered toast. _It won't be too much longer before Kiba-kun wants to go, too. If they don't announce a date soon we'll have to go elsewhere._

It seemed like their entire trip to the Safari Zone of Grass Country had been a waste. They'd walked so far and waited so long, and for nothing. With the Zone closed, there was nothing for them to do beyond wait and train.

_It's nice that we've all gotten to meet up together again, though,_ she thought and sipped her juice. _Except for Sai-san, our entire class that signed up to be trainers is here. The last time that happened was around that awful crisis in the Forest of Death._

_ And I'm glad that Naruto-kun seems to be doing better._

She'd been surprised when she and her traveling companions had returned to Konoha Town for the family birthday, and found that Naruto was also there. Her surprise had quickly turned to distress upon seeing how un-Naruto-like he was behaving. Whatever had been wrong, it had to have been serious. There were few instances that she could remember when Naruto's irrepressible spirit had been down. And the few times that he had been gloomy, he always seemed to bounce back so quickly.

_And who was that man in Naruto-kun's house,_ she wondered, recalling the stranger that had accepted her card on Naruto's behalf. _He looked sort of familiar, but I know I've never met him before. Is he some distant relation? Could Naruto's mother be…dating? Is that why Naruto-kun was upset?_

Hinata caught herself chewing at her lower lip and made herself chew on her cinnamon bun instead.

_Naruto-kun is fine. He has lots of fantastic pokémon like Demon and that aerodactyl, and now he has a pokémon egg. Whether or not his mother is dating that man, or if he's some relative is really none of my business. I shouldn't worry over what is probably nothing…_

Forcibly turning her thoughts away from the blond boy with the odd scars, Hinata shifted her focus towards ideas for new routines for the appeals round of battle contests.

_Naru still needs at least one routine. His __**water pulse**__ attack is a good visual, but what to pair it with? __**Metronome**__ is too unpredictable; there's no telling what attack it will trigger. So—_

"Good morning," Shino politely greeted as he joined her with his own breakfast.

"G-good morning, Shino-kun," Hinata responded. "Is K-Kiba-kun coming?"

"He's still asleep—"

The public announcement system crackled with static and then a brief trumpet fanfare caused all of the quiet breakfast conversations to abruptly cease.

_"Good morning trainers!"_ a woman's voice piped up cheerfully. _"Congratulations! You've all been selected for a special sneak peek of the newest area of the Safari Zone! Come to the gates in one hour so that your safari can begin!"_

The speakers fell silent and the trainers in the cafeteria sat dumbstruck. Then a few beats later they all started talking at once. The volume sharply rose and the noise was compounded by trainers up in the dormitories waking up and getting excited.

"Interesting," Shino remarked. "Kiba will be pleased that our journey here has not been in vain after all."

Hinata could only nod in agreement.

_A new area in the Safari Zone?_ She went back to eating breakfast, but barely tasted it as her mind whirled. _I wonder what's in there…_

* * *

><p>Naruto had completely slept through the big announcement, and only Kiba kicking him out of bed had gotten him going in time. He was still chewing on toast as he jogged up to the front gates of the Safari Zone with the rest of the trainers. The small crowd of around twenty trainers milled around anxiously and checked over their gear as they waited to be admitted.<p>

"This had better not be some kind of joke," Kiba muttered as he scratched Akamaru behind the ears.

"If it is, they'll regret it," Ino growled.

"Troublesome," Shikamaru said around a yawn. "I could still be sleeping right now."

"Isn't this exciting, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked.

"Hn," was Sasuke's only response.

Naruto coughed as he swallowed too fast and toast crumbs went down the wrong way.

"Careful," Chouji said and pounded his back. "Don't choke now."

"Thanks," Naruto wheezed and his eyes watered. "I'm good! Do you think they'll open the gates soon?"

At that moment, a man wearing the Safari Zone uniform trudged out of the main building, unlocked and removed the chains, and opened the gates.

"Go right into the main lodge and wait for instructions," he said as he pointed the group in the right direction. "The owner himself is going to talk to you."

Naruto shivered with excitement as he stepped into the main building with the others. The building looked like a giant grass-roofed hut so it looked very exotic. The interior was decorated with stylized carvings of rare pokémon and commemorative photographs from private excursions paid for by the very wealthy. As his blue eyes drank in all the details it was hard not to bounce in place while he waited.

"Greetings young trainers!" a man's voice boomed, cutting through the chatter of the group and effortlessly grabbing their collective attention.

He looked like an overweight rock star. He had sideburns and his dirty blond hair was slicked back like some teen idol's. The man was dressed in a red and white suit that barely fit him, and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing part of his hairy chest and a silver star necklace. He strode right up to them and smiled as a pair of chatot fluttered in his wake, one landing on each shoulder.

_"Chikara-sama welcomes you!"_ one of the parrot pokémon squawked.

_"Welcome to the Safari Zone!"_ the second bird crowed.

"Thank you very much," he said to his chatot companions and passed each a cracker. "As my little birds have said…welcome to the Safari Zone! I, Chikara, welcome you!" He paused, as if to give them time to clap or cheer, then continued while all the teens and pre-teens stood silent. "I apologize for the Zone being closed for so long, but we've been working very hard to expand and improve the Safari Zone experience. To make it up to you, valued patrons, you have been chosen to enjoy a sneak peek of our newest attractions…completely for free!"

That sparked some excited whispers and that made the fat man smile wider.

"In fact, for this special experience, you'll be treated like VIPs! You'll be broken down into small groups and personally escorted by my game wardens to ensure that you have the best chance at finding the best creatures. And once your hunt is complete, you'll get a free commemorative photograph with your captures. Now, are all of you ready?"

A ragged but enthusiastic chorus of affirmatives answered him.

"Great!" He gestured dramatically towards a long table set up alongside one of the walls. "Go sign your waivers, decide your groups, and check-in your pokémon—since you'll all have guides you won't be needing them. Your guides will provide you with bait bags and safari-balls. Follow their instructions and have a great time!"

_"Welcome to the Safari Zone!"_ one of the chatots chirped again.

Naruto couldn't help but grin like a maniac as he impatiently waited his turn for a spot at the table edge.

_This is going to be awesome! Safari Zone, here I come!_


	2. Part II

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part II_

Naruto sighed as he sat on the edge of the table and dangled his feet. Sakura sat on the opposite end and fiddled with the strap on her bag. Sasuke leaned his shoulder against the wall and almost looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open. The rest of the main room of the lodge was empty except for them. All the other trainers had left on their special safaris. But they were still waiting because their guide hadn't shown up yet.

"Where is this guy?" Naruto groaned.

Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino had managed to group themselves together and had been one of the first parties to leave. They'd been assigned a grim-faced man with light brown hair tied up in a topknot-like ponytail. His pale eyes had left Naruto wondering if he was some distant relative of Hinata's or that Shion girl from Demon Country.

"It could be a girl," Sakura pointed out.

The guide that Hinata, Kiba, and Shino had ended up with had been a woman. She'd been pretty, if a bit ordinary, with brown eyes and brown hair pulled back in a short ponytail. And she was probably a member of some family that had a tradition of wearing face paint or facial tattoos as she had purple rectangles on her cheeks.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, proving that he was awake.

Shifting his position on the table, Naruto pulled his pack into his lap. He'd been allowed to keep his egg with him as it was so close to hatching, and a single pokéball to contain the mystery creature. And he'd been able to keep the old collapsible fishing pole his mother had given him so that he could fish up pokémon in whatever lakes or ponds he came across. But all his pokémon and all his other pokéballs had been collected by the Safari Zone staff and safely locked away, to be returned after his safari was over.

Naruto looked at the wall clock and sighed again.

"It's been an hour since the last group left!" he fumed. "Where's our guide?"

As if his frustrated yell had been a cue, a door opened and a final game warden was led inside by a staff member who normally ran the front desk.

Their tardy guide was a man with spiky black hair, a carved walking stick, and a clear limp. In fact, his entire right side looked…off somehow. His right arm moved stiffly and looked less muscular than his left and it appeared as if he was missing a finger or two. It was impossible to tell what color eyes he had because of the orange mirrored lenses of his sunglasses, and his otherwise standard khaki uniform was brightened up by an orange handkerchief tied around his neck.

"Sorry I'm late!" the man said as he limped over to them. "I was getting caught up with my e-mails and totally lost track of time."

"Liar," the other staffer grumbled. "You were asleep in the break room."

The dark-haired man tossed a glare over his shoulder at the other man before flashing the young trainers a smile.

"Well, let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

He hustled them into a small room and handed them each two bags. One bag contained pink, sweet-smelling cubes and the other was filled with shrunk pokéballs that bore a green camouflage pattern. Then he led them outside and along a path between various buildings towards a set of large iron gates.

"You each have twenty safari-balls to use while we're out there," he explained as they walked. "Normally we'd key them all up to your account so your catches would go straight into storage. But since this is a special event they won't be registered to you until after the safari is concluded. That way you can get your commemorative picture with all your new monsters, and you can easily give them away as gifts to friends or family if you want, too!"

They had to wait for a moment for the gates to be opened, and then their guide limped on through and continued his explanations.

"The other bag contains bait. Feel free to use it to tempt pokémon to come closer and stay longer. You're also allowed to throw rocks and mud at pokémon. Sometimes it makes them easier to catch, sometimes it makes them run away, and sometimes it pisses them off enough to make them attack you."

"Attack us?" Sakura squeaked. "Shouldn't we have been allowed to keep our pokémon for protection?"

"Don't worry!" the man laughed. "I have my own pokémon with me, and if anything wild tries to mess with you I'll take care of them. That's part of the reason that you all have guides. In fact, I'll let a few of them out right now!"

He paused and rested his walking stick against his shoulder so that he could use both hands to release two of his six creatures. The first monster to appear was a fierce-looking houndoom, and the second was a rapidash wearing a saddle. The fire horse immediately lay down and their guide awkwardly moved to settle himself on the creature's back.

"How come you're going to ride while we walk?" Sasuke asked with a frown.

"Because I am disabled," the man replied and lifted his right pant leg so that they could see the metal pole of his prosthetic leg. "And we will be doing _a lot_ of walking."

With a light touch to the rapidash's neck he started off down a broad dirt trail with his houndoom trotting beside him and beckoned them to follow.

"Hey, what's your name?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself!" their guide laughed. "Sorry! My name's Obito Uchiha. Nice to meet you all!"

* * *

><p>"Rin-san, is there not a free shuttle train service that transports patrons to the remote corners of the park?" Shino asked their guide politely.<p>

"There is," the woman nodded. "But the Safari Zone has been expanded and until the rails leading to the new area have been completed the trains won't be running."

"So we have to walk everywhere," Kiba grumbled. "Great."

"Cheer up!" Rin smiled. "Yes, we'll have to walk a long way to get to the new area where all the new stock is concentrated, but while we hike through the older areas you'll have the chance at capturing more familiar creatures."

Kiba's scowl didn't abate.

_I wish they didn't make Kiba-kun leave Akamaru behind,_ Hinata fretted and shoved her hands into her coat pockets to minimize her nervous fidgeting. _It's making it hard for him to enjoy this place. And I would feel better if Akamaru was here, too._

Actually, she would feel a lot better if she'd been allowed to bring one of her own pokémon with her. She'd gotten used to having them by her side, able to spring to her defense at a moment's notice. Their presence gave her a little boost to her confidence, and without them she felt unprotected, almost naked.

_I know that Rin-san's pokémon will protect us if anything goes wrong, but—_

Up ahead some bushes rustled and then a green creature emerged onto the path. It was a four-legged grass pokémon with an enormous single leaf sprouting for the top of its head. When it caught sight of them, it froze.

"A chikorita," Rin said quietly. "Does anyone want to try for it?"

Kiba and Shino shook their heads, but after a moment's hesitation Hinata shuffled to the fore with an active safari-ball in her hand.

_I can do this…I think._

She inched forward until the chikorita moved to flee. With shaking fingers she tossed a bait cube at the monster's feet. The chikorita hesitated, sniffed at the treat, and then gobbled it up, eyes closed in a moment of bliss. In that instant, Hinata made her throw.

_I don't like playing dirty tricks, but this is better than beating it up to catch it,_ she told herself as she watched the sphere twitch and wobble with bated breath.

For a minute she feared that the ball would burst and she would fail, but then the red light winked out and the capsule was still.

"Congratulations!" Rin said brightly. "Success on your first try!"

Hinata flushed and snatched up the safari-ball from the ground.

_This is a good sign, right?_

* * *

><p>Naruto kept shooting glances at their guide as they followed the trail through an open grassy area of the Safari Zone.<p>

_Is he seriously an Uchiha?_

All the Uchiha that Naruto knew were all serious, even grim, and never seemed to smile. Sasuke's mom was the friendliest Uchiha by far and Naruto figured that was because she's married into the family. But this Obito guy acted less Uchiha-like than even her. He was cheerful, friendly, and he spoke in multi-word sentences all the time.

"Sasuke, have you heard of this guy before?" Naruto asked.

"No," was Sasuke's short reply.

Obito overheard them and peered over his shoulder curiously.

"…Ha, man I'm really scatter-brained today!" he chuckled nervously. "I didn't get any of your names."

"I'm Sakura Haruno," the pink-haired girl piped up, then kicked Sasuke's ankle when he stayed sullenly silent.

"Sasuke Uchiha," the black-haired boy muttered.

"Hey, a relative!" Obito beamed. "Who's in your immediate family?"

"My father is Fugaku, my mother is Mikoto, and my brother is Itachi," Sasuke answered reluctantly.

"Oh, oh I know them!" Obito nodded. "The last time I saw them was a really long time ago, though. Itachi was just a little brat…and you were a tiny baby."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted and stared off over the field of tall waving grass.

"Heh, you're definitely an Uchiha," Obito sighed and shifted his gaze to Naruto. "And what about you?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki," the blond boy announced.

Obito stiffened and his rapidash came to a halt. With a twitch of the reins he angled his burning horse so that he wasn't craning his neck to see the children he was guiding. Then he slowly pushed his sunglasses up to rest on the top of his head, revealing that his right eye was covered by a black patch.

"Uzumaki?" he repeated with a raised eyebrow. "You wouldn't happen to know a Kushina Uzumaki, would you?"

"That's my mom's name," Naruto replied with a prickle of dread. _Is he someone that knew my parents? I thought that I met all those people already!_

"Your mom?" Obito surprised expression quickly melted into a gleeful grin. "Ha! Hahaha! Awesome!"

Naruto grinned weakly. _Aw man…_

"You know Naruto's mother?" Sakura asked.

"Oh yeah! I—"

_"Grrruff!"_

Obito clamped his mouth shut and looked at his houndoom, which was frozen with its nose pointing off the left side of the trail.

"Found something, Ash?" their guide asked quietly. When the demonic looking canine nodded, Obito smirked and urged his rapidash off the trail. "C'mon, let's go see—quietly now!"

They cautiously pushed their way through the chest high grass until they came to an area where it had been trampled flat. A handful of pink and blue creatures clustered there, chirping to each other in tones that sounded electronic. Their bodies were blocky and full of artificially straight lines, like they were made up of polygonal blocks.

"Porygon," Obito almost whispered. "Who wants to try for one?"

Naruto chewed the idea over, Sasuke looked completely disinterested, but Sakura stepped forward with a determined glint in her green eyes. She marched out into clear view and hurled a safari-ball at the nearest porygon. Spooked by her sudden appearance and the attack on their friend, the other porygon disappeared into the tall grass with shrill computerized whistles of fright.

The camouflage-patterned ball wriggled—

_POP!_

The sphere disintegrated into shards of plastic and metal as the porygon burst free.

"Oh no you don't!" Sakura snapped as the disoriented creature started to flee, and she hurled another ball.

Wiggle, wiggle—_POP!_

"You're not getting away!"

A third ball whizzed through the air.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle…_click!_

"Gotcha!" Sakura cheered, pumping her fist.

"Great!" Obito smiled. "But be careful with how many balls you use. We still have a ways to go before we reach the new part of the park and all the best monsters. You don't want to run out of balls before we get there."

"Right," Sakura nodded, her excitement quickly fizzling into embarrassment. "I got a little carried away. I always thought I'd have to get into gambling to get my hands on a porygon."

"Well let's get back on the trail," the adult chuckled as his rapidash turned to retrace its steps. "We still have plenty of territory to cover…"

* * *

><p>"Ugh, if I'd known there'd be so much walking I would've bought hiking boots," Ino groaned and eased herself down on a boulder to rest.<p>

"Is it lunch time yet, Hoheto-san?" Chouji asked their guide hopefully.

"It's still two hours until noon," the pale-eyed man replied. "But if we keep this pace up, it'll be three hours before we reach the rest house where we'll be eating."

"What a troublesome place this is," Shikamaru sighed.

"I wish the trains still worked," Ino complained. "I think I'm getting blisters."

"You three rest here for ten minutes," Hoheto told them as he released a lucario and a noctowl from his small collection of pokéballs. "Anubis will wait with you while I scout the surroundings with Nighthawk. If I don't find anything interesting, we'll move on."

The lucario crouched down and closed its eyes while the noctowl flew above the tree tops and their guide slipped off the left side of the trail.

_Why did I think this was a good idea?_ Ino wondered to herself as she pulled off her right shoe to massage her foot. _We haven't seen anything but common pokémon that have snuck into the park. Pidgeys and rattatas and sentrets aren't worth getting blisters over!_

They'd taken the shortest path through the initial grassland area of the Safari Zone and had made it deep into a forested area. There were all sorts of environments within the fences of the park, from lakes and sandy beaches, to rocky dry ground, to marshy ponds, to dense forests, to open grasslands, to cool caves. Ino started to daydream about laying out on some lakeside beach and soaking up the warm sunshine.

_I wish I brought my bikini with me…_

The lucario's eyes snapped open and it suddenly stood up and stared down the path the way that they'd come. Ino opened her mouth to ask what was wrong when an eevee slipped out of the brush and into view. And then another emerged from the undergrowth, and another, and another, and another…

_Hmm…_ Ino slipped her shoe back on and drew a safari-ball. _I've always wanted a leafeon—_

The seventh eevee that stepped into view wasn't brown, it was a pale gray.

_I want it!_

The blonde girl was immediately on her feet and she aimed her throw right at the oddly colored creature. Luck was with her and she hit her target, but it stayed contained for barely a second before the eevee broke free, destroying the safari-ball. The pack of eevees immediately swarmed in a panic, the common-colored ones swirling around the uncommon one, making it nearly impossible to hit.

"Argh!" Ino growled. "Shikamaru, Chouji, help me!"

Without waiting to see if the boys were doing as she asked, she frantically tossed more safari-balls at the mass of eevees, hoping to catch her target before the group scattered and fled. She managed six throws before the fluffy creatures dispersed. One toss was a complete miss, three resulted in broken balls, and two caught ordinary eevees.

But the gray one had gotten away from her.

"Darn it!" Ino pouted as she collected her two catches, the shards of her broken balls, and the one safari-ball that hadn't hit anything. "Did either of you get it?"

"I got an eevee on my second try!" Chouji grinned.

"I got one, too," Shikamaru said in his usual bored tone of voice.

"But did you get the gray one?" Ino demanded. _If they caught it, I can borrow it from them for contests!_

"Gray one?" Chouji frowned, puzzled. "But eevees are always brown."

Shikamaru just shook his head.

"Shoot!" Ino's pout deepened into a scowl. "I almost had it! Let's go after it."

"We can't," Shikamaru snorted. "If we ditch our guide we'll get kicked out of the park and lose our chance at being the first to see the new section of the Safari Zone. Do you want to give that up for a _chance_ at some gray eevee?"

Ino kept scowling for a minute longer before sighing in defeat. "No…"

The blonde girl returned to her seat on the small boulder and sulked until their guide returned.

"All I saw were a few fleeing eevee," Hoheto said as his noctowl landed on a nearby tree branch. "They were moving fast so there isn't much hope that we could catch them."

"We already got some," Chouji cheerfully informed him and held up his used safari-ball.

"Did you?" the man blinked in surprise. When his lucario nodded in confirmation, he shrugged. "Well, good! Now that you've had a little time off your feet, let us continue…"

* * *

><p>"Hey, Obito, is there a bathroom around here?" Naruto asked, squirming a bit.<p>

"There are bathrooms in the rest houses," Obito answered. "But if you just have to pee, go behind a bush. We'll wait for you."

"Okay," Naruto nodded and jogged off the path. "I'll be right back!"

"Don't go too far!" Obito warned.

They'd left the grassland area behind a half hour ago and now where in a forested area that was dotted with occasional flower-filled meadows. Naruto went a few yards off the trail and slipped through some bushes to have maximum privacy. If the party had just consisted of himself, Sasuke, and Obito he would've gone only half as far, but with Sakura around he wanted to make sure that he had plenty of cover.

"Ah," he sighed as he answered nature's call. _That feels better!_

When he finished he zipped back up and turned back towards the path—

_Crack!_

Naruto glanced deeper into the woods to see what had stepped on a twig…and saw a little girl staring back at him.

She looked to be about five years old or so and was dressed in a dark gray dress with a black satin ribbon tied around her waist. Her black hair was done up with a red ribbon, she had red plastic bracelets on her wrists, and there were shiny red shoes on her feet. Her eyes were blue and sharp.

"What are you doing here?" Naruto blurted out in shock. _She's too young to be running around here all by herself!_

The little girl gasped and ran deeper into the forest.

"Hey, wait!" Naruto yelped and gave chase. "Come back!"

The girl was fast and agile. She darted around trees and scampered over logs, easily opening a wide gap between him and her. Naruto kept up the chase, determined to catch the wayward child and bring her to the safety of the group. The girl dove into a large dense clump of bushes, and he followed—

The bushes ended and so did the level ground, and Naruto found himself sliding down a steep bank and staggering into the shallows of a broad stream.

"Hey…little girl?" Naruto looked around frantically, but he didn't see any sign of her. "Where'd she go?"

_"Dile! Dile!"_

The boy jumped and looked downstream to see a blue crocodilian perched on a rotten tree stump and snapping its jaws threateningly at him.

"A totodile," Naruto said to himself and crouched down to feel around the mud for some stones. "Cool!"

The totodile snarled, hopped off the tree stump, and charged him, intent for whatever reason to drive the boy away. Naruto came up with a pair of small river stones and put them to good use. One stone socked the little crocodile in the gut and made it stumble and the second pebble bounced off its skull, leaving the creature stunned and dizzy. And then Naruto whipped out a safari-ball.

"Gotcha!" Naruto crowed when the red light winked out. _A totodile of my very own!_

Sounds of splashing drew his attention back to the stream where he saw a dozen more totodiles and twice as many mudkips surfacing with glares and bared teeth.

"Uh-oh…"

There were far too many to catch—not that he wanted that many of them—and he doubted that he could persuade his fresh catch to help him out. He slowly started to back up, but the steep bank made it almost impossible to do walking backwards. The angry water pokémon converged on the shoreline where he was standing…

_"Grrrooouh!"_

The startling roar sent the water pokémon diving under the surface for cover. Naruto spun around and found Obito's houndoom looming over him. The devilish dog helped pull him back up the bank, but then caught his sleeve with its teeth and dragged him all the way back to the trail, where the others were waiting.

"Where were you?" Obito demanded, suddenly a very stern and serious adult. "What were you thinking?"

"I saw a little girl," Naruto hurriedly explained. "She ran away and I chased her, but I lost her."

"A little girl?" Sakura repeated dubiously. "How little?"

"She looked like she was five years old," Naruto answered.

"Was she wearing a dark dress?" Obito asked. "Did she have dark hair?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "Do you know who she is?"

"No idea," Obito shrugged. "No one knows who she is."

"How can that be?" Sakura demanded.

"She showed up sometime after we started renovating the park and she's robbed the gift shop and the café's kitchens every few nights for over a month now. We caught her picture on the security cameras, but she doesn't match any missing person's report that we've looked at. Night security has been tightened twice but they haven't been able to stop her or catch her. The boss even brought in some growlithes that were specially trained to sniff out lost humans, but they couldn't find her." Obito shrugged again. "It's like she's a ghost."

A chill crawled over Naruto's skin.

_A real __**human**__ ghost?_


	3. Part III

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part III_

Kiba's group reached the rest area that their guide, Rin, had been leading them towards just after noon. They'd left behind the dense forest and were now traversing rockier ground that was dotted with small copses of trees. The trail brought them alongside a narrow stream where the rest house—a simple but sturdy two-room building—sat waiting for them.

"We've made good time," Rin congratulated them as they neared the building. "Our lunch is waiting for us inside and we have about an hour and a half to eat it and rest up before we need to move on."

The Inuzuka boy nodded mutely, only half-paying attention to the woman's words.

With Akamaru gone, he felt like he was missing a limb. He was used to the fire puppy always being by his side, sniffing at the air, barking at strangers, and alerting him to wild pokémon. The only time he'd ever confined the growlithe to a pokéball was after Akamaru had been defeated in battle, or when he was being submitted to a Pokémon Center for treatment.

_Why couldn't Akamaru come with me?_ he sulked. _They let Naruto bring that egg with him that could hatch any day now! And it's not like I'd use Akamaru to cheat or anything…_

Lunch turned out to be simple sandwiches, potato chips, water, and cookies. It wasn't anything special but it was filling and reenergizing. Kiba ate in uncharacteristic silence, and since Shino and Hinata weren't big talkers the whole meal was uncomfortably quiet.

"Um…um, Rin-san?" Hinata squeaked nervously. "W-will other be c-coming here for lunch?"

"One or two might," the woman replied. "But it's not very likely. All the guides picked different routes through the park to keep our groups widely spaced. Too many people traveling through one area can drive the wild pokémon into hiding and then no one would be able to catch anything."

"Logical," Shino commented with a nod.

"Well, now that we've all eaten, we have about an hour to rest up," Rin told them. "You can stay inside, but if you go outside don't go too far. And remember to visit the bathroom before you leave as there won't be any facilities until we reach the camp set up for us at the edge of the new zone."

Kiba decided to exit the small house and parked himself on a medium-sized boulder to continue brooding on Akamaru's absence.

_"Rio!"_

"Eh?" Kiba grunted and scanned his surroundings for the source of the cry.

At first he didn't see it, but when he stood on top of the boulder he caught a glimpse of a monster near a distant tree stump. Kiba hopped down from his perch and cautiously picked his way over the rugged field to within striking distance. It was a bipedal creature with canine attributes and black and blue coloration.

_"Rio!"_ it cried again and punched at the rotten stump, splintering it slightly.

Kiba watched it from his hidden position behind a small rock pile for a few minutes before making up his mind. He picked up a rock fragment and sent it whizzing into the riolu's floppy ear. It squealed in shock and pain and before it could recover he had it confined in a safari-ball. And a few seconds after that, the red light went out, signaling a successful capture.

"Ha!" he grinned. "Akamaru, did you see—"

His voice died as he looked to where Akamaru would've been, had he been present, and recalled that he was alone. Elation snuffed, he slipped his capture into his pocket and slowly meandered back to the rest house. He kicked at a few clumps of tall weeds and loose pebbles as he walked and fell back into his previous glum mood.

_Capturing isn't as fun without Akamaru to celebrate with…_

He was about halfway back when he noticed a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. Kiba turned to look and froze mid-step. Several yards away there was a small troop of eevees trotting through the field.

_Whoa, there are at least ten of them!_

Glancing over the terrain, he grinned.

_If I can get behind them, I might be able to drive a few towards the house so that Hinata can try and get one if she wants!_

Kiba ducked down and did his best to keep the largest rocks and clumps of plants between him and the fluffy little monsters. When he felt that he had the best position he was going to get, he popped up from behind a thorny bush and nailed one of the eevees on the tail end of the group. It busted loose and the pack panicked and started to run just the way that he'd wanted—

_Hey, is that one gray?_

The Inuzuka stood frozen for a handful of heartbeats before he shook himself free and took off in pursuit.

"Hey, slow down you fur balls!" Kiba cursed and flung another safari-ball towards the lightest colored one. "_Eevees!_" he shouted as loudly as he could so that the rest of his group could hear him inside the house. "_Eevees!_"

His second throw was another bust. But his third attempt was the charm. The possible gray eevee, however, evaded him.

"Hey guys!" He bent down to scoop up his full safari-ball on the run and almost tripped. "Did you hear me?"

The door to the rest house banged open and Hinata and Shino stumbled out with their guide a step behind them just as the little fluffy horde scrambled past. His two friends hurriedly gave chase and Kiba stumbled to a halt. He'd gotten one eevee; that was enough for him.

_If one of those eevees is gray, Hinata will probably get it._ He panted and slowly turned back to pick up the shards of the two safari-balls that had gotten destroyed so that he didn't get fined for littering. _Hyuugas always seem to have crazy-good aim._

By the time Kiba returned to the house to throw away his trash, Hinata and Shino had come back, too. Hinata had a shy little smile on her face. Shino's expression was unreadable, as usual.

"So, did you catch any?" Rin asked curiously as she leaned up against the countertop.

"I-I got one," Hinata replied.

"As did I," Shino added.

"You caught one?" Kiba frowned. "You're a bug maniac, what are you going to do with an eevee?"

"New things are discovered about pokémon every day. Perhaps a way to evolve an eevee into a bug form will be discovered." Shino adjusted his ever-present shades. "If not, eevees are valuable pokémon and I might use it to trade for a rare bug pokémon."

"Huh," Kiba grunted. "Did either of you get the gray one?"

"A _gray_ eevee?" Rin frowned.

"I-I thought I was s-seeing things," Hinata murmured, fidgeting with the sphere that contained her freshest capture.

"I did not," Shino answered simply.

"Darn," Kiba sighed and snapped his fingers. "It woulda been really cool if one of us bagged it. Then Naruto wouldn't be the only kid in our class with a funny colored critter."

"What does this Naruto have?" Rin asked curiously.

"A silver ninetales," Kiba replied.

"Um…K-Kiba, did you get an eevee?" Hinata inquired.

"Yeah," the Inuzuka nodded. "And I got a riolu while I was out there, too."

"Congratulations," Rin smiled.

"Hey, when are we going to get to this new place that we're supposed to be getting a sneak peek of?" Kiba asked as he slipped into one of the chairs at the table.

"Just before dinner," the woman answered.

"W-will we like it there?" Hinata wondered.

Rin's smile widened. "Oh, definitely."

* * *

><p>They ran and ran until they came to a thicket formed by a clump of thorny bushes. There they huddled and panted for breath. When it was clear that they were no longer being pursued they fully relaxed.<p>

_:That was close!:_ one of the eevees gasped.

_:Too close,:_ another said.

_:We've gotten lazy,:_ one with a scar on his forehead muttered. _:We got too used to the humans with the shells on their heads that were working at the back of the park. It was foolish to think that the harvesters wouldn't return.:_

_:You're right,:_ a fourth eevee sighed. _:We need to be more careful.:_

_ :We should fight back!:_ a fifth cried. _:If we drive them away—:_

_:We can't drive them all away, there are too many!:_ the second one protested.

_:It wouldn't do any good,:_ the scarred one grumbled. _:How do you think I got my scar?:_

_ :I don't want anyone hurt!:_ the gray one wailed. _:You all should just leave me. It'll be easier to hide if we're in smaller groups, and if I'm not with you they won't—:_

_ :Don't be silly, we won't leave you!:_ the first one snorted.

_:You're special,:_ the fourth said. _:We'll keep you safe, you just stick with us!:_

The gray one's ears drooped. _:But…they'll take you all away—:_

_ :Not if they can't find us!:_ a sixth eevee piped up. _:I think I know the best hiding place. All we have to do is get there.:_

_ :Take us there!:_ the second one demanded.

_:When the sun starts to set,:_ the scarred one said. _:The harvesters get less active in the evening.:_

_ :Will do!:_ the sixth one chirped brightly.

The gray one shuddered with foreboding.

_I don't want them taken away because of me, but…I don't want to be all alone, either._

* * *

><p>"Are we there yet?" Naruto sighed. "I'm starving!"<p>

"We're almost there," Obito replied.

The terrain had changed from thick forest to an open hilly plain dotted with rocks. Sakura had managed to capture a torchic just before they'd left the trees, and Naruto had literally tripped over a huddling snorunt shortly after exiting the woods. Not having an ice-type, he figured it was a good investment and used up three safari-balls before being successful. And Sasuke still hadn't made a single attempt to catch anything.

"Hey, Sasuke, are you ever going to catch something?" Naruto wondered, trying to keep his mind off his growling stomach.

"When I see something worth my time, I will," Sasuke replied.

"And when will that be?" Naruto asked.

"Not yet," was all the Uchiha would say.

"Hey look!" Sakura cried and pointed up ahead. "I can see the house."

"Yep," Obito nodded as his rapidash plodded along the trail. "It won't be long now."

"Will there be ramen?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"No, sandwiches," Obito said. "Dinner might be soup, though."

They forged on at a slightly faster pace now that their goal was in sight. Naruto had to restrain himself from running of ahead so that he could get to his sandwich lunch sooner. He hadn't had much of a breakfast and with all the walking that he'd been doing he was ready to eat a salad if he had to.

But just as they came within feet of the rest house door, it opened and Kiba, Hinata, and Shino stepped out.

"Hey there," Kiba waved. "Come here for lunch?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded, and then a thought struck him. "You didn't eat all the food, did you?"

"Nah, there's plenty left," the Inuzuka shrugged. "We were just leaving."

"Have you caught anything yet?" Sakura asked them curiously.

"I got a riolu, Hinata caught a chikorita, and we all just picked up eevees," Kiba told her.

Naruto's stomach knotted with something other than hunger. _Eevees…_

The other group's guide, the woman with the purple rectangles on her cheeks, slipped outside and walked over to where Obito was still sitting astride his rapidash.

"Need any help?" she asked him.

"No, no!" he waved her off. "I'm a big boy, Rin! I can take care of myself. Go lead your rug-rats off so I can go feed mine."

"If you're sure…" she trailed off uncertainly.

"I'm sure, I'm sure!" Obito grinned broadly. "Shoo!"

"Alright," the woman nodded and beckoned her charges to follow her away from the house and back to the trail.

"See ya," Kiba waved.

"G-good-bye," Hinata squeaked before scampering away.

Shino merely gave them a polite nod.

And then, within minutes the group had disappeared over a hill and Naruto's party was alone again.

"Okay," Obito sighed once Rin was gone. "Wildfire, down."

The rapidash carefully lay down and Obito practically rolled off the fiery horse's back. His prosthetic leg wasn't much good for the awkward business of getting up from the ground so he needed the aid of Ash and his walking stick. Once he was finally upright he blinked at the young trainers like he'd briefly forgotten that they were there.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked. "Go inside and eat! I'll be right in."

Naruto needed no further prodding and scrambled inside, flung open the refrigerator door, and snagged the first plastic-wrapped sandwich that he found. He inhaled the sandwich before bothering to look for other lunch components. And only when he felt full and satisfied did he pay any attention to what everyone else was doing.

Obito was slowly consuming his own lunch, mainly using his left hand. Sasuke was nearly finished eating and it looked like he'd robbed one sandwich of its tomato slices to eat by themselves. And Sakura alternated between eating her lunch and asking their guide questions.

"So where does the park get its pokémon?" the pink-haired girl wondered.

"We primarily get our stock from pokémon ranches, but we also will take in groups of wild pokémon that that have been relocated if they're a species that we offer." Obito paused for a sip of water. "But we also do what we kind to encourage the pokémon in the park to breed so we don't have to buy replacements for what gets taken by the patrons."

"How do you know what needs replacing?" Sakura asked.

"We keep track of what everyone catches, and once a year we go through and do a census of what we have," he answered.

"The Safari Zone always boasts about having rare pokémon, but what about all the common monsters we've seen, like the rattata and the pidgey?" she inquired.

"The fences around the park's perimeter are primarily designed to keep poachers and non-payers out, and most of the stocked pokémon in." Obito shoved the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth and chewed. "Determined small monsters, especially of the avian variety, can usually hop the fence and get in. Sometimes their numbers get too high and they compete with monsters that we want in the park for food, so we set traps for them to catch them and dump them back outside the fence."

Sakura fiddled with her chip bag and nibbled on her lip in thought. "What happens if a rare Safari Zone pokémon escapes the park?"

"It depends on the species, but if only a few individuals slip out we ignore them," Obito replied and wiped his mouth on a napkin. "If we lose enough valuable specimens we track them down, tag them with tranquilizer darts, return them to the park, and figure out how they escaped so that we can fix the problem."

"So if we didn't want to pay for a safari…" Sakura mused.

"The park's perimeter is huge. It takes days to follow the fence all the way around on foot," he snorted. "And a lot of broke trainers try it so most escapees don't last long."

"Hmm…" Sakura seemed to be out of questions for the moment and a brief silence fell over the room.

"…So, what do we do now?" Naruto asked.

"Well, I'm going to rest," Obito replied, and made a little show of stretching in his chair. "Feel free to do the same. There's a bathroom there"—he pointed to a door—"if you feel the need, and over there"—he pointed to another door—"is a room full of bunk beds for napping, although there won't be enough time for more than a catnap. You can hang out in here, or just outside, but if you go out don't go too far. I'm not the most mobile guy so I can't chase after you if you draw the ire of some wild pokémon out of sight of the house."

Naruto fingered the filled safari-balls in his pocket. "Can we play with our new pokémon?"

"You could," Obito said slowly. "But I'd be careful if I were you. Since they haven't been defeated in battle, Safari Zone pokémon have a greater tendency to run away, especially if they think they recognize the environment."

"Okay," Naruto nodded thoughtfully. _Should I or shouldn't I? …Eh, why not!_

He keyed open his safari-balls and the totodile and snorunt rematerialized on the floor. The conical ice monster slowly began to shuffle around and poke at the floorboards. The little blue crocodile sat hunched and sullen and glowered at Naruto's sneakers. Naruto pulled his pokédex out of his pocket and scanned them.

"You're a boy," he said to the totodile. "So what should I call you?"

The blue reptile turned up his snout and did his best to ignore the blond-haired boy.

"Not Crusher…not Chomper…" Naruto tapped his chin as he mulled over ideas. "How about Gator?"

"Good one," Obito nodded approvingly.

The totodile, however, seemed unmoved.

"Gator it is," Naruto muttered and turned his focus to the snorunt. "And you're a girl…"

"You should get a _dawn stone_," Sasuke suggested with a smirk. "Then it'll become a froslass."

"Froslass?" Naruto looked it up in his pokédex and frowned at its types. "Ha ha, very funny."

"What?" Obito tilted his head. "What's the joke?"

"Naruto's afraid of ghosts," Sakura answered.

"Ah," the man nodded his understanding.

"I'm not so bad anymore!" Naruto protested.

"Yeah, well how about you call it 'Flurry'?" Sakura suggested, pointing to the inquisitive snorunt. "That's a feminine-sounding name."

"That sounds great, thanks Sakura!" Naruto beamed.

Sakura shrugged and went back to polishing off her chips.

"So," he turned back to the ice creature, "what do you think of—"

Somehow the snorunt had gotten on top of the counter where it could peek out a window, and promptly fell outside when the window pane swung outwards from her weight against the glass.

"Wah!" Naruto panicked and dashed outside to retrieve his hard-won ice monster before she could escape.

The snorunt hadn't gone far at all. She'd landed upside-down with her pointed head stuck in the loose dirt, leaving her tiny feet waving ineffectually in the air. Naruto recalled the ice imp back into the safari-ball with a relieved sigh.

"Hey, idiot." Sasuke peered around the corner of the building at him. "Your totodile's running away."

"What?" Naruto snapped and sprinted off in the direction that the Uchiha pointed. "Why didn't you stop him?"

"Not my pokémon, not my job," Sasuke called after him.

_Bastard!_ Naruto seethed as he locked on to the scuttling blue blob and picked up the pace. _Stupid loose door! All he had to do was keep it closed!_

The little crocodile ducked and weaved around rock piles and clumps of brush to try and escape, but Naruto wasn't shaken. He hopped over the boulders and crashed through the bushes and weeds when he could, so the totodile lost ground. And then with a final burst of speed Naruto managed to catch the creature's tail and back leg.

"Gotcha!" he panted. _Bleh, too much running after eating…_

Gator gave him a baleful look, but ceased struggling.

"Don't look at me like that," Naruto wheezed. "We'll have lots of fun together! My mom has a feraligatr; I'm sure that you'll be great buddies. _We_ will be great buddies!"

The totodile sniffed and looked away.

"…Maybe I should call you 'Sasuke' instead," Naruto muttered pulled the safari-ball out of his pocket. "Well come ba—"

The sound of some nearby scuffle made him pause. Naruto glanced down towards the foot of the hill where he saw a sloppy ring formed by a motley collection of boulders. Inside the ring there were five riolu—three sitting on the sidelines and two fighting each other.

"A fighting ring?" Naruto whispered to himself as he knelt down behind some cover so as not to distract them. "Did they move those rocks that way?"

The two fighters circled each other, darted together to exchange a few blows, and then broke apart again to circle once more. It quickly became apparent that one was winning and the other was losing. But the loser refused to quit and kept staggering upright to strike at its foe. The three on the side watched the fight with great focus and intensity.

"Are they fighting over something?" Naruto asked the empty air.

The loser fell to one knee as it gasped for air and the winner waited for it to concede or to rise and attack again. The losing riolu closed its eyes in concentration and a hazy blue glow began to surround it. The glow started to concentrate between its forepaws in a sphere shape…

"That looks like _aura sphere_!" Naruto breathed.

He was familiar with the move; he'd seen Neji's lucario perform it several times before. It had been the move that had allowed Neji's lucario to soundly thrash Hinata's riolu. Oracle should've had the type advantage as lucario was part steel and therefore weak to fighting attacks. But riolus couldn't use _aura sphere_ and that had allowed Kaiten to attack from a distance and batter Oracle into the ground without taking a hit in return.

There sphere started to stabilize…and then winked out like a light, much to the riolu's dismay. The winning riolu sniffed and walked away, with the spectators following its lead. The loser snarled and tried again, but the attack collapsed even faster than the first time.

_"Luuu!"_ it howled in frustration.

Naruto hesitated before slowly standing and picking his way down the hillside. His approach went unnoticed until he stepped into the circle of rocks. The riolu flinched in surprise and tried to use _aura sphere_ again, but the blue glow barely was visible before it vanished again.

"Everybody says that riolu can't use _aura sphere_ because its power isn't great enough," he said while the fighting canine wheezed with exhaustion. "You must have worked really hard to get as far as you have."

The riolu watched him warily.

"I bet that if you kept working at it you'll get it right real soon!" Naruto declared with a grin. "But you need to heal up first, so if you wait right here while I get some berries from my bag—"

_"Dile!"_ Gator squawked and tumbled snout over tail into the make-shift fighting ring, then dove behind his legs for cover.

"Huh," Naruto blinked. "What's the matter?" Then he looked back up the hill and saw Ash the houndoom glaring down at him. "Ah…ha ha, sorry! I'll be right up—"

_"Rio!"_ the riolu barked and half-staggered, half-crawled up the hill, intent on attacking the houndoom.

"No, no, no!" Naruto cried. "You're in no shape to fight. Ash will trash you!"

The riolu didn't heed his warning and the houndoom didn't seem inclined to go easy on the aggressive pokémon. Desperate to keep them from fighting, Naruto sent a safari-ball flying into the riolu's back. By the time the camouflage-patterned sphere rolled back down the slope to rest at his feet, the red light had blinked out.

"Sorry about that," he muttered to the ball guiltily. "But…maybe I can help you more this way!" _And if it learns __**aura sphere**__ before it evolves, I can prove to Neji a riolu doesn't have to evolve to be as good as a lucario!_


	4. Part IV

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part IV_

"Did we reach the end of the park?" Ino asked.

Her group had stopped by the park's largest lake for lunch and then bypassed a marshy area that they would've needed waders to traverse. But now they'd come to an impressive fence with a pair of gates set into it that strongly resembled the gates that had led into the park. It looked very much like an exit.

"No," Hoheto shook his head. "This is the entrance to the new section of the Safari Zone."

"Why does it have its own gate?" Chouji wondered.

"For the first few years, visitors will have to pay extra to visit this corner of the park," their guide explained. "But because you are special guests, you all get in for free."

He punched a code into the gate and the doors swung open. Beyond it was a forest that looked exactly like the one that they were currently standing in. But not long after they had entered the new area, it became clear that this place was very different.

A flock of pigeon-like monsters fluttered through the trees. A deer with green fur and a yellow flower sprouting between its ears bounded across the path several yards ahead of them. Little blue tadpoles with smiling faces and warts like headphones splashed around a small pond. Everywhere that the young trainers looked they saw something new.

"This…this is so cool!" Ino breathed.

"Yeah," Chouji agreed.

Shikamaru only nodded.

"You have until sundown, and then all of tomorrow, to catch as many as you can," Hoheto told them. "There are a lot to choose from, so let's get started…"

* * *

><p>Less than an hour later, Hinata, Kiba, and Shino trod the same path as their classmates into the new section as they followed Rin's lead. Kiba had captured a third pokémon, a smeargle, before arriving at the gates, and Shino had acquired a venonat. But Hinata hadn't caught anything beyond her chikorita and eevee.<p>

Feeling a bit under pressure to catch something else, she'd immediately tried for a pigeon-like pidove and caught one on the first try. She felt a bit embarrassed when Rin had told her that pidoves were as common as pidgeys or starlys in their native land. But it was rare here, and the heart shape on its chest made it seem especially cute to her.

Hinata fidgeted with an unused safari-ball as she brought up the tail-end of the group.

_I wonder what else is available here._ She chewed at her lower lip thoughtfully. _I wish that I had done more studying of all the new entries in my pokédex…_

A raised root made her trip and the safari-ball bounced out of her hands and rolled off the trail into some dense underbrush. Hinata hurried into the tangle of plants to retrieve it. She had sixteen safari-balls left and she didn't want to waste a single one by losing it.

When Hinata found the ball, it was resting near the feet of a little girl. The girl was younger than her own sister, Hanabi. She wore a simple dark dress, red shoes, red bracelets, and her black hair was tied up with a red ribbon. Her blue eyes were wide with surprise.

Hinata stood frozen, equally surprised to see such a young child all the way out here, all alone.

"Hinata!" Kiba called as he stumbled through the screen of bushes and weeds after her. "Where are yo—hey, what's this little girl doing here?"

"I…I don't…" Hinata shrugged helplessly.

The little girl's eyes darted between the two trainers and she took a wary step backwards.

"Hey little girl," Kiba said, trying to sound friendly as he reached for her. "Come on; let's go talk to Rin—"

The mystery child snapped her hand away before Kiba could catch her wrist and dragged her nails over the back of his hand.

"_Aie!_ You brat!" Kiba hissed and grabbed at the bleeding scratches on his hand.

"K-Kiba-kun!" Hinata squeaked with alarm. "L-let me see!"

The commotion quickly drew Shino and Rin with her gardevoir off the trail.

"What's wrong?" Rin demanded. "What happened?"

"Some little girl scratched the heck out of my hand!" Kiba cried and showed the woman his wound.

"A little girl?" Rin blinked.

"What little girl?" Shino asked.

Hinata turned back towards where the girl had been standing…and saw nothing but the safari-ball that she'd dropped. There was no sign of which way the girl had fled. There was no sign that a girl had even been standing there at all.

"…W-where did she go?"

* * *

><p>The sun was starting to sink from the sky when Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura made it through the gates of the Safari Zone's newest expansion. Dark clouds that promised rain were building on the horizon. If rain was going to come, it would probably strike late in the night. Naruto hoped that the rain stayed away; rain could drive fire, ground, and rock-type pokémon undercover for up to several days and he didn't want to miss out on anything because of the weather.<p>

"So why were you going to let that riolu go instead of catching it?" Sakura asked him.

"It looked like it was trying to prove itself against the others and I wanted to help," Naruto shrugged. "Catching it didn't cross my mind."

"The pokémon are here for us to capture," Sasuke grunted. "Not for us to solve their problems. And you're an idiot for picking the loser. If you were going to get a riolu you should've tried to get the winner."

"I'm not an idiot you bastard!" Naruto snapped.

"Then how come you blew the licensing exam three times and had to go with a probationary license?" Sasuke retorted.

"You—"

"Quiet you two," Obito warned. "Or you'll scare everything away."

Naruto clenched his teeth, but kept silent.

The forest echoed with unfamiliar pokémon cries as Obito led them further down the path on Wildfire's back. Nothing seemed particularly close to them, but with how thick the bushes were in this area there was no way to be sure. A wild pokémon could be right next to the path and unless Ash smelled it and let them know they'd never see it.

And then Sakura screamed.

"There's something on my head, there's something on my head, _there's something on my head_!"

They all snapped around to stare at her and, sure enough, there was something small, fluffy, and yellow attached to her pink hair.

"I got it!" Naruto cried and hurled a safari-ball at the little yellow thing.

Whatever-it-was was drawn into the safari-ball, but burst free within seconds and skittered around Sakura's feet. The girl shrieked again and latched onto Sasuke's arm to pull him in front of her like a human shield. Naruto tried again, and this time the capture was successful.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered. "I got a…a…a something."

"Hmm…" Obito pulled a small catalogue out of his pack and started flipping through the pages. "Based on the size and the color…a joltik."

Naruto peeked at the picture on the page and had to agree. "An electric bug…cool!"

"It's a spider," Sakura muttered, looking pale.

"It doesn't have enough legs," Sasuke said.

"It still looks like a spider!" Sakura hissed and rubbed at her arms like she was freezing.

"Heh, it must've fallen out of the trees," Obito grinned and urged Wildfire to walk again. "Well let's get going. Our camp is just outside of this forest and we need to get there before the sun sets."

"What happens when it gets dark?" Naruto asked a bit anxiously.

"Well, it's hard to see where we're going," Obito said. "And temporary electric fences will be set up around the camp to keep wild pokémon out of our tents while we're sleeping, so it's best to get there before they turn the power on."

Naruto nodded. "Oh."

With the excitement of the surprise bug over, they walked another fifteen minutes before anything else happened.

Ash, who had been trotting out far in the front stopped dead and started growling. When they caught up with him, a devilish-looking purple kitten slunk into view, hissing and spitting. Sasuke pushed his way to the front without a word and after three tries he captured the angry feline.

"A purrloin for my little relative!" Obito cheerfully announced. "So you were waiting for some dark-types to turn up, were you?"

"I was waiting for something new," Sasuke muttered as he cleared up the ruined remains of his broken safari-balls.

"I hope it gets friendlier when it calms down," Sakura gulped.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, unconsciously rubbing at his scarred cheek.

"I'm sure that it will," Sakura said, trying to sound more confident. "It just—_eeee!_"

Something white and fluffy had stuck itself to the girl's leg. It was like a giant cotton ball with green leaves poking out of the sides like arms or wings. When Sakura kicked it off in a panic it was revealed to have beady yellow eyes.

_"Nee!"_

"Oh," Sakura gasped, clutching at her chest. "Oh…you're cute!" She hurried dug some bait out of the bait bag and spread a few cubes on the ground. "Sorry for kicking you, have a snack."

The living cotton ball hesitated, then started shoveling down the treats with glee.

Sakura waited until it was busy chewing and then tried to catch it. The fluff ball burst free and almost made it off the trail before Sakura caught it again. It escaped a second time, but the girl's third try was the charm.

"Gotcha!" she grinned.

"Now we all have one of the new pokémon," Naruto remarked.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Hn."

Their group got moving again and Naruto was almost bouncing as he walked.

_I wonder what else we'll get!_

* * *

><p>On the outskirts of the forest there was a building. It was brand new with fresh paint, untouched by time or weather. Clustered around the building was a sizeable collection of tents pitched in rings around a few fire pits. Young trainers and some older adults in khaki uniforms milled around the area, moving into tents, sparking fires, and talking to each other.<p>

Twenty yards away a little girl in a dark dress peered around a tree trunk at the campsite with a pout.

_There are too many of them. I can't play with them. They'll catch me and I'll get in trouble._

Her pout turned into a smirk and she scuttled back into the cover of the woods.

_Oh well, I'll just have to practice being other things then!_

* * *

><p>The sky was a brilliant mess of sunset colors by the time Naruto's party made it to the camp. The electric fence hadn't been completely set up yet so they had no trouble walking in amongst the tents. The air was filled with the smell of smoke, soup, and the sounds of talking. After Obito managed to dismount from his rapidash he sent them off to find their friends while he checked in with the other guides and got their tent assignments.<p>

Naruto zeroed in on the campfire where he saw Chouji, Shikamaru, and Kiba sitting.

"Hey guys!" he called and sat down next to them. "How's your luck been so far?"

"Good," Chouji smiled. "I've gotten three pokémon so far."

"I have three, too," Shikamaru said.

Kiba grinned wolfishly. "I have five."

"I got four," Naruto informed them. "What did you catch?"

"Besides the riolu and the eevee, I got a smeargle and two things called lillipups," Kiba answered.

"I caught a vanillite, a cubchoo, and an eevee," Chouji said.

"A yamask, a litwick, and an eevee," Shikamaru yawned.

Naruto blinked slowly. "You all caught eevees?"

"Ino caught two of them," Chouji told him. "She said that she saw a gray one, but she didn't get it."

"She saw it too?" Kiba blinked. "So did I! None of us got it, though."

Naruto felt vaguely queasy. _More eevees…_

"So," Kiba nudged the blond with his elbow. "What did you get?"

"Oh, a riolu, a snorunt, a totodile, and a joltik," Naruto answered.

"So you got a riolu, too." Kiba folded his arms over his chest. "I bet mine's better than yours."

"No way!" Naruto snorted. "Mine's the better one."

Kiba opened his mouth to argue, but Shino's abrupt appearance on the scene interrupted him.

"Dinner is being served," the Aburame boy announced.

"Dinner!" Chouji cried happily and almost seemed to teleport to the cooking fire.

The meal turned about to be soup—not ramen exactly but something with noodles and hearty chunks of meat. Naruto took his serving back to the campfire his friends had claimed and in short order the rest of his former classmates arrived. The girls grouped together in a little trio where Ino and Sakura did all the talking, Naruto sat near his old pals, and Sasuke ended up sitting near Shino to avoid any annoying conversation.

At first the dinner was perfectly pleasant. But then the talk veered towards eevees, since just about everyone had acquired one, and Naruto quickly lost his appetite for his second bowl of soup. Ino brought out her two eevees and started grooming them with a brush and they quickly melted under her attentions. They debated on what evolved forms they were going to try for and Sakura put her two cents in as the owner of an espeon. And then they remembered that he had an umbreon.

"Hey Naruto!" Ino called. "Don't Shadow's rings glow in the dark?"

The boy flinched like he'd been punched. Unable to answer, he set aside his half-full bowl of soup, abandoned his backpack, and fled from the campfire. He wove between the tents and campfires and slipped out of the site through a section of the electric fence that still hadn't been erected. Naruto kept on walking until he was well into the cover of the tree, and then he slumped down next to a massive tree and tried not to cry.

_The one pokémon I never want to have again, and everyone else gets one!_

He huddled there in misery with his head resting on his knees as the sun set completely and darkness fell over the woods until an odd glow caught his attention. Naruto peeked up to see an odd dark blue flame weaving through the weeds towards him. He blinked and then blinked again when the thing that the flame was attached to came into view.

_A candle?_

It was a squat white candle with little yellow eyes, stubby arms, and the deep blue flame burned on top of its waxy head.

"…Hello?" Naruto croaked and rubbed at his eyes.

The candle creature hesitated, then continued to move closer until the boy could feel the warmth given off by its body.

"You must be a fire pokémon," he said.

It moved within reach and tentatively started petting his shin.

"Thanks," Naruto smiled weakly.

After a while, the candle pokémon started tugging on his pant leg and beckoning for him to follow it deeper into the woods.

"A walk might be nice," he said slowly. "But I shouldn't. I'm not even supposed to be out here by myself."

The candle looked very disappointed.

"Well…" Naruto dug around in his pockets for a safari-ball. "You can come with me if you want to."

It eyed the capture capsule with great suspicion, but didn't flee.

"If you don't want to come, I'll just be going now."

Naruto stiffly stood up and headed back the way he'd come. It was completely dark out now but he was still close enough to the camp to be able to make out the glow of the campfires. And when he reached the edge of camp, he discovered that the fence was finished and humming with electricity.

_…Crap._

Fresh tugging on his pant leg brought his eyes to the ground and he found that the candle pokémon had caught up with him.

"Have you changed your mind?"

The candle raised its stubby arms which Naruto took to be a "yes", so he dropped the safari-ball on it and captured it in short order.

_Now I'm tied with Kiba!_

"What are you doing out there?"

Naruto jumped at the sudden question and whirled around to find the lady with purple face markings that was guiding Kiba's group—Rin, he thought—staring at him from the other side of the fence.

"I…went for a walk?" Naruto answered weakly.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," she frowned. "It's dark and all the nocturnal pokémon will be out in full force now."

"I'm sorry," Naruto said sincerely.

Rin sighed, shook her head, and plucked one of her pokéballs from her belt. "Bronto, get him over the fence and make sure that he doesn't touch it."

A meganium appeared in a flash of light and extended vines from underneath the frill of petals at the base of its neck. The grass pokémon carefully arched the vines over the fence, wrapped them around Naruto's chest, and even more carefully lifted him over the electrified wires. Naruto remained tense until his feet safely touched the ground on the other side of the humming barrier.

"Thanks," the boy sighed.

"Who's your group leader?" the woman demanded.

"Obito Uchiha," Naruto replied.

"Ah," she nodded and returned her meganium to confinement. "Follow me then."

Naruto obediently followed her lead back to the campfire that he'd abandoned earlier. Everyone was done eating and was huddling close to the fire as Obito was regaling them with some kind of scary story. The flickering firelight cast ghoulish shadows on his scarred face and odd reflections in his orange mirrored sunglasses.

"…and he ignored the old woman's warning and continued to surf up and down the beach in search of the perfect fishing spot. No location was ever just right. His lapras was growing weary and the sun was beginning to set. He was just about ready to give up for the day, when…"

Obito leaned in closer to the flames and a burning log popped, sending sparks rising into the dark sky.

"A thick fog boiled out of nowhere, and he quickly become lost, even though he'd been skirting the shore the entire time. He urged his lapras to go faster and faster to try and escape and find his way back to dry land, but he could escape the dense mist. And then sudden, the air cleared…to reveal a nightmare given life!"

His voice rose in volume and speed as his tale reached a climax.

"It was as tall as a small skyscraper! A mass of pulsating gray-pink flesh and tentacles that resembled a soup of mangled pixels! It produced a high-pitched cry that echoed from everywhere and nowhere as it lurched forward, pouring through a tear in the veil between dimensions! The young trainer screamed in horror—"

The crippled Uchiha paused again, slowly turning to stare at each of his listeners in turn before finally speaking again.

"Weeks later, the boy was found wandering the burned out ruins of the old mansion. When they brought him into the Pokémon Center, all the data in the computers spontaneously corrupted. His bag seemed bottomless, overflowing with hundreds of items that he couldn't possibly have found or purchased. Any music played in his vicinity warped into something slow, haunting, and eerie. And when he spoke, he could only say one word…

"…_MissingNo.!_"

For a minute there was only the sound of the crackling fire.

"That was stupid," Sasuke grunted.

"Come on," Obito groaned. "That's my best story!" When he caught sight of Naruto and the woman guide, he clapped his hands together. "Well, it's late, everybody hit the sack! It'll be an early start tomorrow."

There was a chorus of grumbling as all the young trainers got up and shuffled off to various tents. Naruto tried to follow them, but Rin held him by the shoulder so that he couldn't flee. When they were all gone, Obito sighed and removed his sunglasses.

"Okay, what's up?"

"He was out in the woods," she told him.

Obito pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why?"

"I wanted to go for a walk," Naruto muttered feebly.

"Why?"

"Because…" Naruto scuffed his sneaker on the ground and swallowed. "Because…they asked about…about my umbreon, Shadow…but he's dead."

The Uchiha hissed through his teeth. "Ah…well…"

"I won't do it again," Naruto shrugged.

"I hope so," Obito muttered. "I'll take you to the tent."

The crippled man struggled to lever himself out of the folding chair and Rin moved to help him.

"I'm fine—"

"Oh, don't be such a baby!" she scolded and helped get him back on his feet.

"Thank you," Obito grumbled and tapped Naruto's ankle with the end of his walking stick. "Follow me."

His guide brought him to the tent where Sasuke and Sakura were already waiting on their sleeping bags. Naruto was relieved to find that his backpack was already inside and he hurriedly went about unrolling his own bedroll. Even though the tent was fairly spacious Obito had some trouble getting inside without falling over, and once he sat down he started to remove his fake leg.

"Where were you?" Sakura demanded with a frown.

"Away," Naruto muttered evasively.

Sakura's frown deepened. "What—"

"I got another pokémon," Naruto announced and let the candle back out to distract her.

"Really?" The pink-haired girl blinked in surprise and pulled out her pokédex to look it up. "Litwick…oh, it has the _flame body _ability! That'll make your egg hatch faster… Um…"

"Cool!" Naruto grinned and removed the incubation capsule from his bag, removed the egg from the tube, and placed it beside the litwick, which happily hugged it.

"You know that's a ghost pokémon, right?" Sasuke asked.

"…What?" Naruto said blankly. _But…it's not cold like a ghost!_

Sasuke slowly shook his head. "How can you catch a ghost by mistake _again_?"

The blond dug out his own pokédex and did some quick research. _Litwick…the candle pokémon…types: ghost/fire…_

Naruto closed his eyes and groaned.

_Darn it, I did it again!_


	5. Part V

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part V_

Faint rumbles of thunder rolled in from the distance, but not a drop of rain fell. The camp was dark and quiet. All the fires had been doused and all the flashlights had been switched off. The only sounds were some scattered snores, nighttime insects, and the barely audible hum of the electric fence that surrounded the tents.

A group of six floating dark blobs with beady red eyes slowly drifted out of the forest. They circled around the camp, wary of the wires. Then, after examining the entire perimeter, the six things spread out around the clump of tents and settled down on the ground.

A smoky pink mist spread out from the mysterious creatures and drifted past the fence and into the camp. It curled around tents and seeped in through the screen windows. And once inside the tents, the odd smoke slipped into ears and up nostrils of the people and pokémon sleeping inside…

* * *

><p>Naruto found himself wandering around a forest with no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there. He stopped walking and puzzled over his predicament, feeling oddly calm. When he looked around, he found his recently-acquired litwick just behind him.<p>

"Oh, hello."

"Hello," the litwick waved.

The blond boy blinked. "You can talk? …I must be dreaming." _Now it all makes sense…_

"A human can understand me?" The litwick rubbed the side of its face thoughtfully. "I must be in a dream!"

Naruto grinned and put his hands in his pockets. "Well, since this is a dream, what do you want to do?"

"Hmm…" The candle pokémon closed its eyes and swayed in thought before being struck with an idea. "I want to evolve!"

The litwick was consumed by light and started to change form. It lifted off the ground and shifted from a candle stub into a glass lamp. Now it had long black arms and a broad black lampshade on its head, and its yellow eyes floated on the glass sphere that contained its ghostly fire.

"More!" the ghostly lamp cried, and again it was covered in light.

The arms of its final form were curled and two prongs jutted off each limb with little fires burning on the ends. Its glass sphere head was bigger and ribbed with black lines like a stained glass window. And its lampshade hat was gone, allowing a gush of dark blue flames to explode from its top.

"Whoo~!" it cooed as it started to float around his head. "I'm a chandelure!"

"Cool!" Naruto smiled. _Even though it looks sort of like part of a haunted house…_

"What about you, Sad Boy?" the chandelure asked. "What do you want to do?"

"My name isn't 'Sad Boy', it's Naruto!" he informed the pokémon. "And…I dunno. I never really get to pick what I do in a dream."

"Hmm…let's go this way!" the fiery ghost decided, and started to float down a fork in the path.

"Hey, wait up!" Naruto cried and jogged after it.

They traveled the winding trail for a while and chatted about berries, the scenery, and the pleasant weather of the dream forest.

_"Hello?"_ a faint voice called. _"Is someone there?"_

"Yeah," Naruto said warily as he paused. "Who are you?"

_"Your voice! I know your voice!"_ it cried happily.

"It's this way!" the chandelure declared and turned down a barely visible path that ran between clumps of dense bushes.

Naruto followed it to a small clearing where his pokémon egg was sitting on the flat top of a tree stump, shrouded in wisps of odd pink smoke.

"My egg?" he murmured in surprise.

_"I hear you!"_ the faint voice cried, still sounding faint and echo-y. _"I want to see you!"_

"Who are you?" Naruto repeated as he picked up the egg and looked around for the speaker. "Where are you?"

_"I'm here, I'm here!"_

The egg started to glow and immediately captured Naruto's attention. Instead of cracking open, it very slowly morphed into a pokémon. Long ears and a bushy tail formed off a fluffy body. And while it was still glowing, a pair of large black eyes cracked open to stare up at his face.

_"I see you! I see you!"_

Naruto's expression of wonder stiffened as its outline solidified. _It looks like a…_

"Are you what's in the egg?" the chandelure wondered as it peeked over Naruto's shoulder.

_"You're the voice that I hear!"_ The glow was swiftly starting to fade. _"I love you!"_

Naruto dropped the egg-turned-pokémon and jerked away.

_"Wait, come back! Don't you love me, too?"_

"Hey, what's wrong?" the chandelure asked.

The boy turned and ran.

_"Don't go! Don't leave me alone! I love you!"_

Pink smoke boiled up from the ground and down from the trees and it swirled around Naruto, getting thicker and thicker until everything faded to black…

* * *

><p>Naruto jerked upright in his sleeping bag and crashed his forehead into someone else's.<p>

"Ow! Naruto!" Sakura howled, clutched at her head. "What's the big idea?"

"What were you doing so close to my face?" Naruto countered. "Were you…going to kiss me?"

"Ew! No!" the girl snapped with disgust. "I was just going to wake you up. They're about to start serving breakfast."

"Oh…" Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry."

Grumbling under her breath, Sakura slipped out of the tent and left him alone.

Naruto sighed and scrubbed the lingering sleep from his eyes. His litwick crouched near his pillow with the two-tone egg, watching him curiously. Looking at the ghostly candle and the un-hatched pokémon, he frowned a little.

_What a weird dream… Ah, well, breakfast time!_

"Wait here," he instructed the little ghost. "I'll be back in a little bit."

Hanging his goggles around his neck and pulling his shoes on, he slipped out of the tent and sought food.

Breakfast was either warm oatmeal or cold cereal. Naruto got in the line for oatmeal and stirred some blueberries into his serving. But just as he was leaving to find a place to sit down and eat, a bigger, older boy bumped into him, almost knocking him down.

"Hey, watch it Shorty!"

"_You_ bumped into _me_!" Naruto protested.

The older trainer looked to be almost eighteen years old. He was stoutly built with beady eyes and a sneering mouth. His denim jacket had no sleeves, there were holes in the knees of his jeans, and his boots had steel toes. About the only way that he could look more thuggish was if he'd been wearing a spiked dog collar.

"What did you say, Shrimp?" the bully growled.

"I said it was your fault," Naruto shot back.

"Hey, Hayato," the thug snarled. "This little brat's being mouthy."

The large boy's friend was as thin as he was thick. Hayato had a narrow hawk-like face with a thin black bar tattooed over the bridge of his nose. His shapeless clothing hung off his bony frame and made him look even skinnier.

"Is he now?" Hayato rasped. "What are you going to do about it, Katsuro?"

"What do you think, idiot?" Katsuro snapped. "I'm going to teach him a lesson!"

The older trainer loomed over Naruto and made as if to hit him, when a third teenager—a guy that Naruto recognized as the one he'd run into when he had first arrived in the Pokémon Center—stepped up to intervene.

"Don't, Katsuro, you'll get us ejected."

"Sticking up for the small-fry, Ken-Ichi?" Katsuro sneered.

"No, I just don't want to get the boot before I catch all I can catch," Ken-Ichi replied calmly. "What about you?"

Katsuro worked his jaw angrily before dropping a burning glare on Naruto.

"I won't forget your face, Punk. When this little safari is over, I'll give you your lesson!"

Naruto clenched his fists and opened his mouth to make a retort, only to clamp it shut against a hiss of pain when Ken-Ichi surreptitiously kicked his ankle. Satisfied that he'd made his point, Katsuro turned away with Hayato trotting at his heels. Naruto glared at their backs, and then glared at Ken-Ichi who had lingered behind.

"Katsuro carries grudges forever," the older teen warned. "He has a charizard and a salamence and he delights in using them to curb-stomp younger, weaker trainers. If I were you, I'd keep my head down and avoid his notice until you can escape."

And then, before Naruto could open his mouth to respond, he walked away.

"What a bunch of jerks!" Naruto huffed and stalked off to eat his breakfast.

He found a seat next to Shikamaru and wolfed down his food.

"…and then I ate it all!" Chouji said with a smile. "It all felt so real; I could really taste the ice cream."

"I dreamed that I got lost in a haunted house," Kiba told the chubby boy. "Sometimes a patch of air would be sparkly, or some of the furniture would move, and I'd run to another part of the mansion. Did you have any weird dreams, Shikamaru?"

"I got lost in the clouds," the Nara boy replied. "It was the nicest dream I've had in a while. I almost started to believe that I was flying until I woke up."

"Did you have any nice dreams last night, Naruto?" Chouji asked.

"I went for a walk in a forest with one of my new pokémon and it talked to me," Naruto shrugged. "It evolved a couple of times because it wanted to."

"I wish that Akamaru had been in my dream with me," Kiba sighed.

"What, you needed Akamaru to protect you in the haunted house?" Naruto grinned.

"Shut up!" Kiba barked and pointed a finger at him. "Why did you run off last night when Ino asks you a perfectly normal question?"

"I…um…" Naruto stared at the back of the Inuzuka's hand. "Where'd you get those scratches from?"

"Some little mystery girl did it to me before I could grab her," Kiba grunted, tugging his sleeve over the marks. "Rin says she's some kind of thief."

Naruto blinked. "I saw that girl, too. She didn't scratch me, though."

"You're changing the subject," Shikamaru pointed out.

"No I'm not," Naruto denied and scraped the bottom of his bowl.

"Yes, you are—"

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Obito's voice cut over Shikamaru's sharply as he limped past. "It's nothing."

"But Obito," Rin protested.

"I just slept funny last night," the Uchiha sighed.

Rin eyed him dubiously. "So you didn't have any vivid or unusual dreams last night like the ones everyone else is reporting?"

Obito fidgeted with the mirrored sunglasses in his shirt pocket, and then noticed the four boys watching them.

"Hey," he brightened. "I remembered something that I was going to tell you last night!"

"You're changing the subject on me," Rin frowned.

Obito ignored her and rested his crippled right hand on Naruto's head. "Guess what his name is."

"Obito…" she glowered warningly.

"C'mon!" he pleaded, his remaining eye glittering with amusement. "Who does he remind you of?"

_She knows my parents, too?_ Naruto wondered with dread.

Rin pressed her lips together and studied the blond boy intently for a few minutes. "…He looks a lot like Minato-sempai."

"Yeah," Obito grinned. "And his last name is Uzumaki."

"No!" she gasped, and took another look at him. "No way!"

Naruto's shoulders slumped a little. "You know my mom, too?"

"If your mother's name is Kushina Uzumaki, then yes, I do." When the boy nodded, she beamed. "Oh, wow! How has she been? _Where_ has she been?"

"We live in Konoha Town," Naruto answered. "And she's fine." He hesitated before adding, "She's getting married."

"Your mom is getting married?" Kiba asked, his voice flat with disbelief.

"Really?" Rin gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth.

"To Minato-sempai?" Obito blinked.

"Yeah," Naruto shifted uncomfortably.

"That's wonderful!" Rin sighed with a dreamy sort of expression.

"I want an invite to the party!" Obito was almost bouncing with excitement. "There will be a party, right?"

"I think so," Naruto shrugged.

"Great!" Obito put his sunglasses on. "Put my name on the guest list, then."

"Me, too," Rin nodded eagerly.

"Okay, I'll let her know," Naruto promised.

"Thanks," Obito sighed happily. "It's been a long time since I've gone to a really good party."

Ino, who had been approaching Chouji and Shikamaru with her curly-tailed tepig in her arms, paused when she heard what they were talking about.

"Party?"

"Naruto says that his mom's getting married," Chouji told her.

The blonde girl's blue eyes grew almost comically wide. And then she all but pounced on Naruto, her mouth running a mile a minute. She started off rambling about flowers and how his mother should go to her family to get them because they'd definitely give her a discount because they knew her, and then she demanded all sorts of details about dresses, and before he could tell her that he had no idea she started asking a plethora of questions about churches, cakes, and who his mother was marrying.

Naruto's discomfort with the current conversation spiked into something akin to panic.

"I finished my breakfast," Naruto told Obito urgently. "Can we go pokémon hunting now?" _Before Ino eats me alive?_

* * *

><p>Hinata fidgeted with one of her safari-balls as she and her group left the camp, following Rin's lead. It seemed like a good idea to have one handy just in case something suddenly appeared alongside the trail. If she had to fumble around in her pockets for one, whatever she'd seen might have a chance to escape.<p>

The plan for the day was that Rin would lead them into the new zone and periodically allow them to spread out and hunt for pokémon. She would assign one of her own pokémon to follow them as they split up, since she could only pick one of them to personally escort at a time. And they would spend the whole day, except for a lunch break, seeking out new rare pokémon.

But Hinata's mind wasn't really on the day's agenda.

_So, that man that I saw in Naruto-kun's house will be marrying Mrs. Uzumaki?_

That would certainly explain the stranger's presence there. And perhaps that explained why Naruto had been so unhappy back in Konoha Town. Maybe his mother had called him home to introduce him to her fiancé and Naruto was shocked and displeased with this development. Maybe he wasn't too keen on his future father and he hadn't been able to talk his mother out of it.

…Or maybe she was completely wrong and his previous melancholy had had some other source entirely.

But she wasn't about to ask him about it. Ino and Sakura had interrogated him relentlessly about his mother's upcoming marriage and it had clearly overwhelmed him. She wasn't about to add to his discomfort by asking him even more questions.

Her determination not to ask potentially uncomfortable questions didn't erase her curiosity, though. What was the real reason he'd looked so very sad in Konoha Town? What did he think of his changing family situation? Why had he left the campfire the previous night with no explanation or clear reason?

_I wish that I knew what's wrong—_

A rustling sound behind her made her freeze in her tracks. She spun around to see a large clump of berry bushes shivered. Spotting a dark shape moving through the leaves, she threw the safari-ball in her hands before the creature could slip away.

It sounded like it had been drawn into the sphere, but she couldn't see anything. Holding her breath and straining her ears she waited to see if it would escape. Seconds ticked away and while she didn't hear the sound of the ball breaking, she also couldn't hear the soft click of a successful capture.

"Did you catch something?" Kiba asked, almost directly in her ear, which made her jump and shriek.

"I…I think so," Hinata gasped, flushing in embarrassment from her little scream.

"Let me check," Rin said and cautiously searched the bushes for the safari-ball.

"What was it?" Kiba wondered.

"I…I d-didn't see," the girl nervously admitted.

"Well, there's something in here," Rin remarked, weighing the camouflage ball in the palm of her hand before giving it to the Hyuuga. "Shall we see what you've found?"

Hinata steeled her nerves and pressed and held the button, snapping the sphere opening and releasing what was contained inside. The creature that reformed from light was only about a foot shorter than she was. It was pink with a cream-colored belly, its eyes were blue, it had a white cottontail, and its ears were almost like an elephant's with odd curled extensions hanging from them.

"An audino," Rin said after locating its picture in her field guide, which contained pictures of all the new species introduced into the Safari Zone. "In the land that they come from they're commonly used in Pokémon Centers the same way that chansey are used here."

"Interesting," Shino remarked.

"Hey, it does the same finger-thing that Hinata does!" Kiba said.

Sure enough, as Hinata watched, the timid creature tapped its fingers together in almost the same way that she did when nervous.

Kiba clapped her shoulder. "This pokémon is perfect for you!"

Hinata smiled at the audino and it hesitantly smiled right back at her.

_I think that we'll get along just fine…_

* * *

><p>Sasuke wandered a rolling meadow, leaving Naruto and Sakura behind with Obito at the pond. Naruto was busy instructing Sakura in the use of his fishing pole and Obito was sitting on a log and resting. Uninterested in fishing, Sasuke was hunting other pokémon with Obito's magmar, Maggy, along for protection.<p>

It was a little after mid-morning and the weather was clear and fair. There didn't appear to be any pokémon in the meadow but there were plenty of patches of long grass and lots of dense bushes along the perimeter of the woods where pokémon could easily hide, so he wasn't discouraged. With the flaming pokémon trailing a few feet behind him, Sasuke began his methodical search.

_Why do girls have to be so nosy?_ he wondered as his mind began to wander a little.

Ever since breakfast Sakura and Ino—and after leaving camp, Sakura alone—had been pestering Naruto about his mother's supposedly upcoming marriage. At first he'd been sort of grateful that the idiot blond had sucked in all female attention. That meant that Sakura had temporarily forgotten of Sasuke's existence, which had been a nice break from her irritating attentions. But after a while he found that he could no longer ignore the pink-haired girl's repetitive questioning and Naruto's equally repetitive _I don't know_.

So, he'd done his good deed for the day and insinuated that Sakura's interest was not in Naruto's mother's marriage, but in her future in-laws. Naruto and Obito had laughed. Sakura had been utterly mortified and whacked Naruto over the head to make him stop giggling. And then the whole subject of marriage had quickly died.

_It was none of her business anyway._

Up ahead, Sasuke spied something green basking on a broad flat rock. He paused, drew a safari-ball from his pocket, waved to the magmar to stay put, and crept closer with great care. If it was asleep he wanted it to stay asleep as that would greatly increase his chances of catching it in one attempt, and he wanted to maximize the number of monsters that he collected here.

When he was a little over a yard away, he made his throw. The ball wiggled twice before stilling and the light winking out. And now that his target was secured, he pulled out his pokédex to see exactly what it was.

"…A snivy," he muttered to himself.

He didn't think much of grass types; they had a lot of weaknesses. But every pokémon he captured in this new area would be one that Itachi had never encountered or fought before. And the more unknown pokémon that he had in his possession, the bigger edge that he would have over his sibling.

_I'm one step closer, Aniki. Soon I'll be able to defeat you and earn the kaleidoscope badge. And maybe then mother and father will remember that I train pokémon, too…_


	6. Part VI

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part VI_

Naruto strolled along the shore of the clover-shaped pond while Sakura kept using his fishing pole. He'd already hooked a tadpole-like tympole, which he'd decided to name Gamatatsu. Not being as big of a fisherman as his mother, he was ready to move on in search of other pokémon.

_I've caught six pokémon now,_ he mused. _And I have nine safari-balls left. So…_

A quacking sound drew his eyes back to the surface of the pond. A small flock of blue-feathered duck-like pokémon were paddling along and playing with each other. As he watched them, he was struck by an idea.

_Mom's always complained that there aren't any good water pokémon that can actually fly. She has Briny, but now that he's a pelipper she thinks that he looks all dopey and slow. Maybe I could get one of these as a present for her._

After thinking it over for a minute, he pulled out his bait bag and started sprinkling the tasty cubes onto the water to tempt some of the pokémon closer. Several of the duck pokémon paddled closer, snapping the treats up in their bills. When Naruto saw one that was close enough and looked thoroughly distracted, he made his move.

He bopped the water fowl in the head with a safari-ball and it was drawn inside with a startled squawk. It was hard to tell how much the ball was twitching as it bobbed on the surface of the water. But when the red light went out there was no question that his attempt had been a success.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered and plopped onto the ground to pull off his shoes and socks. _Now to go get it…_

* * *

><p>When the magmar finally refused to let him wander any further, Sasuke turned and skulked back to where he'd left the rest of his group. He'd captured two more pokémon: a steely pawniard and a ferret-like mienfoo. Perhaps he could convince the others to follow the path that he'd taken. Before he'd had to turn back he thought he'd seen the entrance to a small cave.<p>

Obito, the relative that he'd decided to classify as "embarrassing", was still sitting on the log while his saddled rapidash grazed on the meadow grass. Sakura seemed to have hooked a heart-shaped pink fish with hand-like fins with Naruto's pole and was gushing excitedly over it. And Naruto had his shoes and socks off and his pant legs rolled up to the knees, like he'd been wading in the pond.

"What's that called?" Naruto was asking the pink-haired girl.

"An alomomola," Sakura answered. "It's it pretty?"

"It's got a long name," Naruto remarked.

"I think I'll call her 'Alo'," Sakura said thoughtfully. Then she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. "Sasuke-kun, you're back!"

"Hn," the Uchiha boy grunted as all eyes swung towards him.

"So…you catch something?" Obito inquired.

"Snivy, pawniard, mienfoo," Sasuke listed tersely. "Can we move on now?"

"So impatient," the adult sighed with a shake of his head.

The corners of Sasuke's mouth twitched down in a brief frown and he headed over to where he'd left his backpack on the roots of a shady tree. Naruto's and Sakura's bags were there at the base of the tree, too, along with Obito's light bag. The blond boy's litwick had been left loose there so that it could continue to accelerate his egg's incubation. But he'd only taken a few steps when the ghostly candle started flailing and making a ruckus.

"What's the matter Onibi?" Naruto asked.

Obito lifted his sunglasses and squinted his remaining eye. "Looks like your egg is cracking."

Naruto promptly freaked out. "What! What am I supposed to do? What—"

"Relax," Obito chuckled. "Just hold it and when it hatches make sure that you're the first it sees."

Sakura shoved him over to where the two-tone brown egg was shivering and cracking, pushed him into a sitting position, and put the egg in his lap. While the girl bounced with barely restrained excitement, Obito took his time limping over with the aid of his walking stick. Sasuke rested his shoulder against the tree trunk and watched with much greater dignity than his two former classmates.

The egg wobbled and shuddered as cracks split the eggshell with painful slowness. It started at the narrow top end and stretched down towards the wider bottom end. Then, finally, it burst open with a flash of light.

When the glow faded, the creature that had been growing inside the egg was revealed at last. It was brown and fluffy, with long thin ears and a bushy, fox-like tail. It opened large black eyes and squinted up at Naruto's face, and then its fluffy tail started to wag.

"A baby eevee!" Sakura breathed. "It's adorable!"

Sasuke wasn't terribly impressed. Eevee was a decent pokémon and very flexible in terms of possible evolutions. And while it wasn't terribly common, it also wasn't incredibly rare. Naruto's mother possessed a female vaporeon (which explained exactly where the egg had come from) and Naruto already had an umbreon, so another eevee wasn't necessarily anything that he needed.

But then he happened to take a look at Naruto's face and found himself completely puzzled by the other boy's reaction.

_Why does he look like he's seeing a ghost?_

* * *

><p>Naruto stared down at the pokémon on his lap and felt like someone had thumped him in the back of his head with a heavy book. The eevee from his dream stared up at him with the same innocent, cheery face. If he didn't feel so stunned and if he wasn't stuck sitting down, he probably would've staggered away from it just like he had in the dream.<p>

_"Vee!"_

"I bet it'll look up to Shadow like a big brother," Sakura babbled happily. "They'll look so cute together, don't you think?"

Now it felt like someone had socked him in the stomach. He bowed his head as his eyes stung and he tried to find air to breathe. His fingers fisted in the short green grass and he felt vaguely ill.

_"Vee?"_

The eevee peered up at him and its wagging tail slowed. It was a little smaller than most eevees that he'd seen, he noticed with detachment. It wasn't as fluffy with a shorter neck ruff and its long ears seemed a bit floppy.

"It's too bad that we had to leave our pokémon behind for this safari," Sakura continued. "Otherwise Shadow could meet it right now."

Naruto gritted his teeth together so hard that his jaw started to ache. He wanted to tell her to shut up, but he couldn't seem to unfreeze himself to do it, or anything else. So he just sat there with his head down and hoped that she'd shut up soon.

The eevee seemed to be worried by his non-reaction to it. The brown fluff ball wobbled into his stomach and tried to climb up his chest to get closer to his face. But as a hatchling fresh from its shell, it had terrible coordination and ended up toppling onto its back in his lap and flailing its paws in the air, spreading tiny bits of eggshell everywhere.

_"Eee!"_

"What are you going to name it?" Sakura asked. "Do you have any idea what you'll evolve it into? How about an espeon, to compliment your umbreon? Or does Shadow's type not matter—"

"Shut up," Naruto finally managed to choke out. "Shadow's dead."

And then he lurched into motion. He staggered upright, causing the newborn eevee to slip off his lap with a squeal, and stalked off, leaving his shoes, socks, bag, and litwick behind. The blond boy stumbled to the far side of the pond before he decided to sit down again.

He wanted to rage at his mother, but she was out of reach until he could get out of the Safari Zone and find a phone. He wanted to bite Sakura's head off, but she hadn't upset him on purpose; she had no idea about Shadow because he hadn't told her, or any of his old classmates. He wanted to trade the baby eevee for Shadow, but not only was that impossible, it wasn't really fair to the fluffy newborn.

Naruto sat with his back up against a tree and slowly shredded fallen leaves with his fingers without really seeing what he was doing until something dared to interrupt his solitude.

_"Vee~!"_

The eevee almost bounced off his knee as it tried to pounce on him. It scrabbled onto his leg and pawed at his arm frantically. When he looked its face, he couldn't help but remember his dream again.

_—"Don't go! Don't leave me alone! I love you!"—_

Naruto chewed on the inside of his cheek while the eevee pleaded with its large dark eyes.

_Stupid…it was just a dream._

A touch on his other side alerted him to the fact that Onibi had shown up as well. The spectral candle petted his arm much the way that it had the previous evening when he'd first met it. Naruto watched the litwick for a moment before sighing.

"Sorry about running off like that…"

"That's good to know," Obito's voice answered, making the boy jump.

When he turned and peered around the trunk of the tree, he saw the Uchiha riding towards him on Wildfire with Ash trotting alongside. The houndoom spat Naruto's shoes with the socks stuffed in them at the boy's feet and snorted with disgust. Naruto's backpack dangled from Obito's maimed right hand.

"It's time for us to get moving if we'll be doing any more hunting before it's time for lunch," Obito said. "So let's get a move-on, shall we?"

Naruto nodded sheepishly and started putting his socks and shoes back on.

"So…your friends didn't know? At all?"

"I was alone when it happened," Naruto muttered.

"Why were you alone?" Obito asked as he tossed the blond his bag.

"I travel alone," Naruto shrugged as he returned Onibi to his safari-ball.

"Why?"

"Everybody else left before I did," he shrugged again. "Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru stuck together because their dads are all friends. Shino and Kiba went with Hinata because her dad asked them to. Sakura managed to attach herself to Sasuke because she's into him, and Sai was with them too, but he left after a little while so nobody knows where he is…"

"So you're by yourself all the time?" Obito frowned.

"I always have my pokémon with me," Naruto muttered. He hesitated before gingerly scooping up the little eevee and tucking it in the crook of his arm. "Hey…why do you think my mom gave me this?"

"I can only make guesses, but I'm sure that she didn't mean for it to upset you so much," Obito replied and turned Wildfire back towards where Sasuke and Sakura were waiting.

"Maybe," Naruto mumbled as he followed and the eevee started licking the bare skin of his forearm with its warm tongue. "I don't want another umbreon to replace Shadow."

"Impossible!" Obito snorted. "Every pokémon is unique, even within a single species. And no one's saying you need to evolve that eevee into another umbreon; it can become six other things depending on what you decide."

"Yeah," Naruto nodding slowly as they came into view of his two traveling companions. "I guess so…"

"Try not to worry about it," Obito advised. "Now let's go check out this cave that little cousin Sasuke has found!"

Sasuke heard that remark and scowled at his adult relative. Sakura shifted uncomfortably, unsure of whether or not she should chastise an adult in defense of her crush. Naruto managed a weak grin and adjusted his grip on the eevee so that it couldn't lick him anymore.

_I should try and enjoy myself. This is a great opportunity—getting to play in the Safari Zone for free. I'll worry about why Mom gave me an eevee egg when I can get at a phone._

* * *

><p>Sasuke peered around the recesses of the tiny cave. It was small as caves went, and clearly artificial, made from concrete and chunks of imported rock. His group's arrival had started a flock of fluffy flying things called woobats into flying away, but aside from them the cave seemed to be empty.<p>

_There had better be something else in here,_ he thought with a scowl.

If he had been alone, an empty cave wouldn't have been a big deal. Sakura had wasted a safari-ball on trying to get one of the woobats as it had fled, but it had failed and then all the bats had disappeared into the surrounding trees. If no one caught anything, this little exploration would be a waste of time, and that would reflect on him as it had been his idea.

At least his old classmates seemed suitably distracted from his poor choice of direction. He'd been blindsided by Naruto's admission that his umbreon was dead. Sakura had been even more shocked and she was clearly torn by respecting his feelings and finding out exactly what had happened, so she settled on constantly glancing at and away from him and not saying a word. And Naruto, while more subdued than normal, did his best to act like he hadn't freaked out and stormed off earlier. He mostly rubbed his newly hatched eevee's ear and asked Obito about his adventures working in the Safari Zone.

A sound scrabbling sound immediately caught his attention. Sasuke squinted into a dim cave chamber and saw something moving. In order to get a better look, he tossed a handful of bait cubes to tempt it closer.

The pokémon was a small four-legged reptile creature. It was dark in color—mostly blue with a black feathers or fur covering its head and neck. A spike poked out of the top of its head and it was impossible to see its eyes, or even if it had any eyes. While it was distracted with munching on the sweet treats, he scanned it with his pokédex with the voice function turned off.

_Deino…a dark dragon…_

Sasuke scooped up some rock fragments in one hand and pulled a safari-ball from his pocket with the other, and set about catching what he hoped would be his big brother's nightmare.

* * *

><p>Ino brushed her bangs aside as she and her group traversed the desert. Well, it wasn't <em>really<em> a desert; it was just a corner of the new part of the park that had been covered with a layer of sand and a few big rocks. But real or not, it was home of a selection of desert-loving monsters and that's what they were on the look-out for.

So far, their pokémon-catching efforts were going well. Ino had captured several pink pokémon with flower patterns on their hides less than a few minutes outside of camp. She'd found one munna right after the other and had collected three of them before deciding to stop. One she would keep for herself and she planned on giving one to each of her parents. And in addition to the little psychic tapirs, she'd also picked up a cute child-like monster called gothita.

Chouji had picked up two new monsters as well. The first one had been a disgusting animated garbage bag called a trubbish, which he found just as cute as his cubchoo that always had an enormous glob of snot hanging from its nose. And as soon as they'd come to the desert area, he'd caught a little rock creature named roggenrola.

Shikamaru had caught a lot of pokémon, but they were all the same species. When they stumbled over a large herd of deerling, he'd just thrown safari-balls until he'd run out. Ino was sure that he'd done that because he'd come to find their safari to be "troublesome" and he was done expending any effort on it.

His ridiculous laziness really made her want to scream sometimes.

Ino puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and resisted the urge to kick at the sandy ground. If she did she'd just get sand—well, _more_ sand—in her shoes and it would irritate her more. So she pushed Shikamaru's complete lack of ambition or drive out of her mind and focused on getting as much as possible out of this unique opportunity.

A smudge of green against the dirty yellow of the sandy field caught her attention and Ino stopped short.

"I'm going that way, okay?"

Before anyone could disagree, Ino made a beeline for the blob of green. The color green almost always meant a grass pokémon, and her family was big on grass pokémon. So any green pokémon was well worth her checking out.

The unknown green thing soon resolved itself into a pokémon her pokédex could identify. It looked like a cactus crossed with a bunny rabbit and its jagged mouth was set into a cheery grin. The monstrous cactus was called a maractus and watching the cute thing wiggle made Ino want to squeal, but she restrained herself lest she startle it into fleeing.

But a handful of bait and two safari-balls later, Ino had it caught and allowed the squeal of delight out.

_I love this place!_

* * *

><p>Naruto munched on an apple as he sat outside a rest house. Unlike the one at the center of campsite, this building was unfinished. There were plastic sheets in the windows instead of glass, there was no furniture inside of the house, and there was no electricity. The only thing that functioned was the toilet. Their lunch had been preserved in several ice-filled coolers.<p>

Before they'd stopped for food, Sasuke and Sakura had both captured two new pokémon apiece. Sasuke had caught a deino at a fairly steep cost in safari-balls, and then an electric zebra called blitzle. Sakura had caught a blitzle at the same time as Sasuke from the same small herd, and then she'd gotten her hands on an amoeba-like pokémon called solosis.

Naruto hadn't caught anything new, though he had tried. He'd tried to get his own blitzle, but all the zebras had disappeared before he could make a throw. He had attempted to get a deerling, but after wasting two balls his target had bounded away. And just before they'd reached the rest area he had tried to get some kind of cute puppy called lillipup but again he wasted a safari-ball for no return.

_Now I just have five left…_

His eyes drifted down to the pokéball resting by his knee. He'd left the eevee lose up until around the start of lunch. It kept getting into everything and running around and so he'd finally introduced it to the pokéball that would be its mobile home. With it confined he'd been able to eat without worrying about it getting lost.

He really didn't know what he felt about the little fluff ball. It was cute and energetic and friendly, always trying to lick him, touch him, or get his attention. He didn't dislike it and want to get rid of it, but he didn't want to get attached to it either.

Naruto traced a fingertip over the cool metal of the only pokéball he'd been allowed to bring into the park.

_Should I insist that Mom take it back? Should I get rid of it by trading? Should I…keep it, and give it a name?_

The questions chased themselves around in his brain until his teeth hit the tough core of the apple and he realized that he was finished with it. He snapped the pokéball to the bracket on his belt and gathered up the garbage from his lunch for disposal. Then he happened to catch sight of Sakura heading away from the rest house with Ash the houndoom and a sense of purpose about her, and on a whim he decided to tag along.

"So, where are we going?" he asked her as he jogged up to her side.

Sakura jumped at his sudden appearance. "Oh, uh…I saw that there was a stream this way and since everything needs to drink water I figured that there would be pokémon over here."

"Cool," he grinned. "Do you think we should get Sasuke?"

"I already invited Sasuke-kun to come along," the pink-haired girl shrugged. "He was too busy studying his pokédex."

"Too bad for him then," Naruto said. "I bet we'll find some cool stuff and he'll miss out!"

"Naruto," she sighed and shook her head.

They slipped through a screen of trees to find a shallow stream that ran over a pebbly bottom. Just across the water there were two pokémon in clear view. They were small, barely two feet high, and gray-green in color. They had fin-like crests on their heads and sizeable straight tusks jutting from the corners of their mouths.

The two tusked pokémon were facing each other and appeared to be playing a mirroring game. One would raise its right arm, and the other would raise its left arm. One would shake its head and the other would do the same. The only difference between them was that one seemed stupefied by the other's mimicking ability, and the other found its fellow's amazement humorous.

Naruto made up his mind and made his move first. He plucked a pebble from the stream and used it to bean the grinning tusked lizard in the head to daze it. And as soon as the little rock left his hand, he reached for a safari-ball to send right after it. The creature was so stunned by the first blow that the safari-ball barely wiggled before the capture light went out.

Sakura was seconds behind him. Since the remaining pokémon was panicking, she didn't try to use any stones. Two balls ended up getting broken, but the third one was the charm and she caught it.

"I'll get them!" Naruto volunteered and got across the stream by stepping on a few rocks that peeked above the water.

"They're axew," Sakura said as she stared at the screen of her pokédex. "They're a dragon-type pokémon!"

"Awesome!" Naruto beamed.

The blond boy shoved his catch into his pocket and tossed the other safari-ball over the stream to Sakura before retracing his steps back to the opposite bank. Sakura kept researching her newest acquisition with excited intensity. Ash didn't seem to sense anything else nearby and took the opportunity to get a drink from the clear stream.

"Let's go make Sasuke jealous," Naruto suggested and started back towards the rest house before Sakura could share her own ideas.

Sasuke was exactly where they'd left him—sitting on the countertop and leaning against an unpainted wall as he perused data in his pokédex. Obito was sitting on top of one of the coolers with his prosthetic leg popped off so that he could rub at the stump. The older Uchiha waved upon their return while the younger one completely ignored them.

"Get anything?" Obito asked as Ash settled down beside him.

"We got dragons!" Naruto boasted.

"Let's see 'em," their guide invited.

They released their fresh catches at almost the same time. Sakura's axew reappeared first. Naruto's re-solidified a fraction of a second later.

"An axew!" Obito smiled. "And…uh…"

"That's not a dragon, Idiot," Sasuke snorted.

"Wha—_huh?_"

The thing that had come out of his safari-ball wasn't a little green dragon with tusks. It was a charcoal gray furry thing with an inky black neck ruff, red paws, red eyebrows, and a red-tipped tuft of fur on its head. The creature was mammalian, fox-like, and it glanced over its shoulder at him with something like disdain in its blue eyes.

"That was _not_ what I caught," Naruto declared with a point of his finger.

"No, it was an axew, I saw it!" Sakura agreed.

"Weird," Obito muttered and pulled out his little field guide. "Well, let's see what it is…" He paged through the catalogue of pictures from cover to cover, and then started looking through it again. "This…doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?" Sakura asked.

"Every species that we ordered is in this book," Obito frowned and pushed up his sunglasses to get a better look at the pictures. "But…but it's not in here!"

"Then how did it get here?" Sakura wondered.

"And what is it?" Naruto sputtered.

Sasuke turned the volume up on his pokédex.

_"Zorua, the tricky fox pokémon…"_


	7. Part VII

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part VII_

Naruto knelt on the floor and stared at the little black fox. The zorua stared right back at him through narrowed eyes. Sakura, Sasuke, Obito, Ash, and the axew watched the stare-down in silence.

Then Naruto shifted, his arm brushed against the lone pokéball on his belt, and it popped loose, releasing the baby eevee.

_"Vee!"_

Shaking itself off, the little eevee looked around, spied the zorua, and trotted right up to it. The eevee curiously sniffed at the dark fox, and the zorua looked annoyed…then it smirked. The zorua hopped into the air, somersaulted, glowed red, and when it landed it appeared to be a perfect copy of the newly-hatched eevee.

"Whoa!" Naruto gasped.

"How did it do that?" Sakura wondered.

"It's zorua's ability," Sasuke said as he continued to study the information in his pokédex. "_Illusion_."

The eevee was startled by the abrupt transformation. It tilted its head curiously, and the disguised zorua mirrored the movement exactly. The zorua was playing the same game that it had with the axew earlier, and instead of being confused the little eevee quickly decided that the game was fun.

In no time at all the eevee and the false eevee were chasing each other around the room. The axew stuck close to Sakura's leg and watched the game warily. Naruto stood back up and watched them play with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, they seem to be getting along well," Obito remarked.

Then the zorua smirked again, leapt up onto the counter—a move the baby eevee couldn't hope to match—and then dove right through the thin plastic sheet sealing the window, vanishing outside.

"Gah!" Naruto yelped and spun around to the door. "No, no, no, no!"

He dashed out of the building and circled around to the point of escape, but he saw nothing beyond a rodent-like patrat bounding into a nearby clump of tall grass.

_Crap, crap, crap!_

* * *

><p>She giggled softly as she snuck off into the trees, exchanging the patrat glamour for one of a venipede.<p>

_Humans are so stupid! It's so easy to deceive them. The only things stupider are the monsters that let themselves become enslaved to humans!_

She shook her head and went about looking for more fun. This whole place was her playground and she was not done playing yet. Her brief capture wouldn't put a damper on her games.

The zorua would play and play until she got bored enough to sneak out of this place and find her way home. She surely hadn't been moved very far from her tribe's territory. Once she got around the perimeter fence she would find a landmark that would lead her home and she would brag to her mother and father and uncles and brothers about her masterful pranks.

_They'll all be so impressed!_ She giggled around, seeking a new victim. _And maybe they'll finally stop treating me like a baby…_

* * *

><p>"I can't believe you lost it!" Sakura complained.<p>

"Of course I lost it—it can look like any pokémon!" Naruto snapped back sourly.

Sasuke shook his head in silent disgust.

They had searched around the rest house for the runaway for more than an hour without any success. The zorua must've run across the stream to let the water muddle its scent trail as Ash wasn't able to sniff it out. And now they were back on the hunt for new pokémon; the zorua a write-off.

"I did warn you to play with your new pokémon at your own risk," Obito shrugged.

Naruto's shoulders sagged. "But…we were inside…"

"I guess they don't call it the 'tricky fox pokémon' for nothing," the adult remarked. "Well, I think I have an idea of how it got here without anyone knowing. Most of the new pokémon that we imported came from breeders over there, but we bought up a few lots of wild pokémon that were being relocated because they'd become nuisances. Since it can create the illusion of being any pokémon, it must have gotten rounded up in one of those bunches and shipped over here without anyone seeing its true form."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Sakura nodded thoughtfully. "…What will happen to it now?"

"Since it's escaped, it's free game for anyone that finds it," Obito replied as Wildfire plodded along at his slowest walking pace. "Maybe Boss Chikara will arrange for the trainer that catches it to get some special prize after he hears about it."

"What sort of prize?" Sakura asked curiously.

"No idea," Obito answered. "I'm sure he'll think of something good. He's a pretty sharp businessman; better than the previous owner. The old owner would've never thought up such a great publicity stunt as this."

"Publicity stunt?" Sakura blinked.

"Yeah," the older Uchiha grinned. "This special trip isn't just a reward for loyal young patrons that hung around waiting for the zone to reopen. The free commemorative photos that you're going to have taken will be used in advertisements to draw in lots of people when it's time for the grand reopening. People will get to see all the fantastic new pokémon that ordinary trainers such as yourselves can catch if they pay just a little bit more than the basic admission price."

Sakura's green eyes grew very wide. "Our pictures will be used in ads?"

"If the people in charge of advertising like them enough, yeah. But even if they don't get on posters or in the papers, a copy of your photo will get hung on the wall of the lodge for all future visitors to see, just like all those pictures from the hunts of special wealthy patrons that you saw before heading out." He grinned down at her from his perch in the saddle. "Cool, huh?"

"Wow," Sakura agreed. A few minutes later, she came up with another question. "So that's why you kept reminding us that all the good pokémon were in the new part of the park—so we'd catch mostly new pokémon to showcase in our pictures?"

"Exactly!" Obito nodded. "We couldn't force you to catch only new pokémon or deny you the opportunity to catch species that we've always stocked—that would make it so you wouldn't want to visit the zone again and spend your money on a safari pass. We could only encourage you to focus most of your attention our here."

"I get it," she nodded.

The pink-haired girl continued chatting up their guide on a variety of other subjects—pokémon, the Safari Zone, etc—while Naruto stopped paying attention. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and trudged along just behind Sasuke. A black cloud that only he could see hovered over him as he walked.

_I don't know why Jiraiya called me lucky. Just because I beat his butt all the time at that card game that he taught me doesn't mean anything. I catch a rare pokémon that no one even knows is around…and I lose it! That's not lucky at all!_

* * *

><p>It was late afternoon when the zorua located some tasty wild raspberries and a target for her teasing. An emolga was stuffing its face on the juicy treats with great gusto, and it was sitting on the ground in easy reach. The zorua grinned and slunk out of the shadow of a fallen log, still in the guise of a venipede. She rudely shoved the gliding rodent aside and started eating from the bush.<p>

_:Hey, back off you stupid bug!:_ the emolga squeaked in outrage. _:I found these first!:_

The zorua smirked and shifted her illusion to copy the emolga almost exactly. The differences that she worked into the image were lots of juice stains around the mouth and a chubby potbelly. The false emolga patted its bulging midsection, winked at the true emolga, and started stuffing its face like a glutton.

_:Wha…wha…you…I'm not fat! Quit making fun of me!:_

She ignored the electric glider and kept up the mocking display, adding a few rude scratches to piss it off even more.

_:You!:_ the emolga growled, sparks cracking on its yellow cheeks. _:You'd better cut it out right now!:_

The little fox shrugged off the warning and, finished eating raspberries, and turned to wave its illusory emolga tail at the real pokémon.

_"Hehehee~!"_

_:That's it!:_ the emolga cried and the crackle of electricity grew louder.

The zorua had intended to send the emolga-illusion gliding off into the tree branches since she couldn't really fly and then flee deeper into the forest in the confusion. But the real emolga moved a lot faster than the dark fox had expected. It crashed into the zorua's back in a shocking _spark_ attack, breaking the illusion and sending her tumbling.

_:Ow…:_ she whined as her body tingled oddly.

_:Huh?:_ The emolga paused, briefly startled. _:Ha! So that's your true face! Now prepare to taste my wrath!:_

The tricky little fox tried to get up and flee, but her limbs refused to respond. _Ah, I'm paralyzed!_

Still steaming mad, the emolga spread its gliding membranes taught and soared in a high-speed, zigzagging _acrobatics_ attack. The speedy attack knocked the zorua up against the fallen log that she'd hidden behind earlier. She managed to stagger upright and wobble as her muscles shivered from paralysis.

But the emolga wasn't done. The gliding squirrel raced up a nearby tree trunk. Skittering out onto a thick tree branch, it charged up another _spark_ attack and prepared to leap from the tree and let gravity add an extra kick to the blow.

_:Here I come, you—:_

A camouflage-patterned pokéball whizzed through the air and bounced off the back of the emolga's head and sucked it in with a flash of red light. Once the ball snapped shut, it plummeted to the ground, bounced a couple of times, and started wiggling. The zorua stared at it for a moment before staggering for cover in a panic.

_Humans! I can't let them catch me again! I have to hide!_

She ended up crawling into the raspberry bush and used her powers to disguise herself as a pile of dead leaves that would hopefully allow her to escape notice.

A human wearing a long coat with a high collar and strange dark lenses over his eyes pushed his way through a tangle of evergreen bushes mere seconds after the safari-ball stilled and its red light went out. He picked up the sphere and studied his immediate surroundings with great intensity. The zorua started to fear that his old lenses made him able to see through illusions, but then he turned away and left the way that he came.

"I did not see anything. Whatever the emolga had been quarreling with must have fled."

"Th-thank you Shino-kun f-for getting it for me."

"I could've gotten it for you!"

"You have used up your allotment of safari-balls. However, I still retain a small number. If the other pokémon had still present I had the potential to attempt a capture, while you did not."

"Shut up smarty-pants!"

"P-please don't fight…"

"Hinata's right. We don't have time to waste on petty arguments; we have only a few hours until it starts to get dark. Today is the only full day we have in the Safari Zone so let's use it wisely."

The three younger voices agreed with the older one and there were sounds of them walking away.

The zorua strained her ears until she couldn't hear the humans any more. Then she kept listening, just in case they or some other group was still nearby. And only when she was doubly sure that she was alone did she finally relax her illusion and limp out of the bush.

_Ow! Owie-ow-ow-ow! …I don't feel so good._

She had a talent for disappearing before her teasing really started a fight, but today just didn't seem to be her day. First she'd been captured by a stupid human and barely avoided becoming a stupid slave. And now she was battered, bruised, and paralyzed with no idea how to heal herself.

Whenever she'd been hurt before her mother had always come to the rescue. When a swarm of venipedes had poisoned her, her mother knew just the berry for the job. When a cottonee had paralyzed her with _stun spore_, her mother had made it all better with a different berry. And when a shelmet had put her to sleep with a yawn, her mother had awakened her with the sharp taste of yet another berry.

But the zorua had never paid attention to what berry fixed which problem because her mother had always been close by.

_:Mommy!:_ she howled. _:Mommy help!:_

Her only reply was silence.

* * *

><p>As evening fell, Naruto's mood managed to get even worse. He'd ruined two safari-balls on trying to catch an oshawott and another on trying capture a cottonee, and he hadn't gotten either of them. Now he only had the safari-ball he'd used on the escaped zorua and one unused ball left.<p>

Sasuke still had three unused safari-balls to his name. He'd used up a few more to catch a weird floating eel thing called a tynamo, which brought his total of pokémon up to seven. If he was really lucky, he could bring his collection up to ten before he had to stop.

And Sakura had used up _all_ of her safari-balls, which meant that she had nothing to do for the remainder of their stay in the park. The final thing that she'd caught was a large pink thing called an audino. And that brought her final total up to eight monsters.

_Man! First my egg hatches into an eevee, then I lost that pokémon, and now I can't catch anything! What's going to happen next?_

Naruto was several steps behind his group, too busy pouting to bother closing the slowly growing gap. Sasuke and Sakura were both right behind Obito's rapidash and they both seemed focused on the hot dog and hamburger dinner that would be awaiting them at camp. Obito's houndoom kept pace with the gloomy blond, as if it was sure that Naruto would bolt off into the woods again without any warning.

_Not that I'm likely to do that any time soon,_ Naruto sulked. _I—_

Ash stopped short and his head swiveled sharply to the right. Naruto looked in the same direction and didn't see anything but trees and a few clumps of shaggy bushes. The houndoom's senses were much sharper than a human's so what Naruto didn't see didn't matter—there was something out there somewhere.

Naruto sighed. "Hey, Sasuke…there's something over that way."

Obito reined Wildfire to a stop and Sakura waited with him while Sasuke led the way off the path with Naruto and Ash trudging behind him.

"If it's another patrat, will you catch it?" Naruto asked.

"No, why would I want a stupid rat?" Sasuke snorted. "You should catch you…you should be able to keep a hold of one of those."

"Shut up, Bastard!" Naruto grumbled.

They rounded a squat tree with a gnarled trunk—

"Hey!" Naruto exclaimed. "It's that little girl!"

The mysterious little thieving girl that he'd seen the previous day was now curled up on the ground in the center of a small clearing. She was hugging her knees to her chest and shivering all over like she was cold or scared. Even though she didn't look like she was going to run away again, Naruto kept one eye fixed firmly on her as he turned slightly to yell back at the path.

"The little thief is over here!"

_"Coming!"_ Obito shouted.

There was the loud crunch of hooves on dead leaves as Wildfire swiftly trotted on the scene with Sakura dashing along behind it. In less than five minutes they had the tiny delinquent surrounded with no real hope of escape. The little girl just shrank into a smaller ball and whimpered a little.

"Alright," Obito said, putting on his most serious face. "You're going to have to come with us so—"

Ash stalked right up to the little girl and sniffed at her hair. The child whined and shied away from him. The houndoom stiffened, then peeled his lips back from his sharp teeth and growled.

Obito frowned. "Ash?"

_"Grraaouf!"_ the houndoom barked and spun around, viciously whipping his devil tail at the child.

"Ash, wait—!"

The little girl vanished like smoke…leaving a cowering zorua in her place.

Everyone was rendered speechless. Sakura clapped her hands over her mouth. Obito pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. Naruto slowly raised his arm to point at it. And Sasuke just blinked several times.

"Ah!" Naruto gasped finally. "It's you!"

The zorua just drooped and looked completely miserable.

Naruto fumbled around in his pockets until he found the safari-ball he needed. The red return laser drew the tricky little fox back into confinement, proving that it was the earlier escapee and not some other zorua that happened to have slipped into random pokémon shipments. And once it was back in his hand, Naruto did a little happy dance.

"Ha! I got it! I got it! I got it!"

"Wow," Obito chuckled and shook his head. "I should get you to pick some lottery numbers for me."

Sakura put her hands on her hips and sighed. "I don't believe it…"

"Hn," Sasuke grunted and turned back to the trail. "Let's go. Dinner's waiting."

The pink-haired girl immediately fell in step behind the young Uchiha and muttered: "I hope that Ino-pig doesn't eat all the veggie burgers."

"No one's going to believe this," Obito said and lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and urged his mount back into the lead. "The little girl thief was a pokémon all along. That's why we could never find her! We looked for shoe prints and ignored any paw prints. And those growlithe were trained to follow only _human_ scents… No wonder we never caught her."

Naruto's grin was so broad that it felt like it was splitting his face.

_Maybe I am kinda lucky…_

* * *

><p>The next thing that she knew, she was enclosed in some type of human structure that she didn't immediately recognize. She was found herself sitting on a soft sleeping bag and crouched in front of her was that infernal human that had captured her that afternoon. The zorua growled and tried to leap away from him, but her legs failed to respond properly and she fell over.<p>

"Something paralyzed you, eh?" the human remarked stupidly and started rummaging around in his bag. "These should fix you right up!"

The boy placed a little red berry with a curly stem right in front of her, and then he added a larger blue-colored berry.

_"Hey, Naruto!"_ another human's voice called. _"Hurry up before Chouji eats all the hot dogs!"_

"I'm coming!" the yellow-haired human shouted in the direction of the other voice. Then he turned back and fixed the zorua with a stern look. "You stay here, eat your berries, and don't cause any trouble until I get back, okay, Kitsune?"

And then he magically unsealed a hole in the fabric wall, stepped outside, and sealed it right back up.

_A name,_ she thought numbly. _A name is a tool of enslavement, a tool of control. A name says that he __**owns**__ me…_

For a moment she felt horribly, horribly sick. The gray and blue fabric walls seemed to close in around her. And the odd flameless light that illuminated the chamber cast increasingly sinister shadows on the walls.

But then she shook her head sharply, gobbled up the berries so fast that she almost choked on the red berry's stem, and then was pacing her prison as soon as her muscles unlocked.

_I won't become a human's slave! I won't be cast out! I'm not a failure!_

She poked at the wall with a paw and it gave very easily. She backed up a few paces and tackled the wall, only to be tossed backwards. She rolled nose over tail a few times and knocked over the yellow-haired human's bag.

A red and white ball bounced out onto the floor and burst open. There was a flash of light and the brainless little eevee that she'd used in her previous escape appeared. It glanced around, saw her, and it broke out into a moronic smile.

_:Friend!:_

_ :I'm not your—:_

_ :Play!:_ the little eevee demanded, pounding its forepaws on the ground and wagging its fluffy tail. _:Play!:_

_ :No!:_ she barked. _:I'm leaving—:_

_ :Play!:_ the stupid eevee squealed and tackled her to chew lightly on her ear.

_:Get off of me!:_ she demanded and tried to wrestle free.

The eevee just thought that it was a game and kept hopping back on every time the zorua wriggled free. Their struggles jostled the half-open bag even more and several more pokémon balls were knocked loose. Some of them remained inert, but a few cracked open and released their contents.

_:Hey, what's going on?:_ a totodile snapped. _:What's all the ruckus about?:_

_:Is there a fight going on?:_ a riolu asked.

_:Hello again, little eevee,:_ a litwick smiled and waved.

_:Onibi!:_ the eevee cried and abandoned the zorua to hug the ghostly candle. _:Friend!:_

_ :We have a new friend?:_ the litwick asked, glancing over at the bristling zorua.

_:What're you supposed to be?:_ the totodile demanded with a suspicious glare.

_:I'm not your friend!:_ the zorua spat. _:And I am whatever I want to be!:_

To prove it, she wrapped herself in the illusion of another totodile, which made a nasty face at the real thing.

_:Gah!:_ the little blue crocodile choked and jumped back in shock. _:How'd you do that?:_

_ :Magic,:_ the false totodile smirked.

_:…It's an illusion,:_ the riolu said as it squinted at the disguised zorua. _:On the outside you look different…but your aura doesn't change.:_

_ :Whatever,:_ she sniffed disdainfully and allowed the glamour to fade.

_:Well…I'm Rasen,:_ the riolu said cheerfully and held out a paw in greeting. _:What's your name?:_

_ :I don't need any name!:_ the zorua spat and turned back to study the fabric wall. _:I'm getting out of here!:_

_ :Yeah, right!:_ the totodile laughed. _:Face it, you've been caught, just like us. You're not going anywhere unless that little scar face lets you!:_

_ :I'm no human's slave!:_ she snarled and tackled the wall again, only to be bounced back once more.

_:Play!:_ the eevee cried happily and started to mimic the zorua's actions.

_:No, don't do that!:_ the litwick fussed. _:You'll knock down the tent!:_

_ :I don't care,:_ the zorua growled. _:I'm getting out. I'm staying free!:_

_ :But you can't!: _the riolu protested. _:And why would you want to? Naruto will help you become strong. That's what he promised me.:_

_ :Humans are worthless,:_ the black fox sneered.

_:Play!:_ the dumb eevee giggled and tackled the tent wall, which bounced it back. _:Fun!:_

_"Hey, Naruto,"_ a drawling human voice said loudly. _"I think your pokémon are knocking down your tent."_

_ :No!:_ the zorua gasped, and charged the tent wall, ready to _scratch_ her way through.

But the boy with the odd, whisker-like scars reentered the tent and stopped her and the idiotic eevee. He hustled all the loose monsters back into the spheres. And then, after a short lecture that she ignored, he locked her away, too.

As she floated in the odd place inside the small ball, she couldn't help but remember the story that her mother had told her about her grandfather. He'd become so secure in his skills with illusions that he had become arrogant and sloppy. A human had not only discovered him, but captured and enslaved him.

_:We are powerful because we are unseen,:_ her mother had said. _:Never let a human see you more than once. Never, ever let a human catch you. If you become a human's slave, you will be dead and lost to us forever. To be captured by a human is to utterly fail as a fox:_

_ But I'm not a failure!_ her mind wailed. _I don't want to be cast out of the tribe! I want to go home!_


	8. Part VIII

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part VIII_

Naruto stretched his arms over his head and yawned as his group struck out from the camp right after finishing breakfast. Behind them additional Safari Zone employees were collapsing the tents, burying the fire pits, taking down the temporary electric fence, and cleaning up whatever trash had been left on the site. In a few hours, the meadow would have only the newly-built rest house as any sign that humans had passed through the area.

They were one of the last groups to leave and head for the main gates. All the parties that had used up all their safari-balls had left the earliest since there was no reason for them to linger; seeing all the pokémon that they _couldn't_ catch was no fun. Those who still had a chance to catch more were taking the scenic route back to the gates in hopes of finding a few more monsters to acquire before the end.

Shikamaru's group was one of those early-leaver groups. He, Chouji, and Ino had used up all their safari-balls before dinner. Chouji had seemed satisfied with the seven pokémon that he'd caught, Shikamaru had just been relieved to be done, and Ino kept pouting over all the cute pokémon that others had caught and that she hadn't.

Shino's group was still in the running for more pokémon, though. The Aburame boy still had five safari-balls left to use up. Kiba had finished out with nine pokémon, and Hinata had ended up with eight.

_I have one left, and Sasuke has three._ Naruto pulled his last safari-ball out of his pocket so that he would be ready if he caught a glimpse of anything. _I wonder if we'll get anything else…_

"So…have you decided on a name for your eevee yet?" Sakura asked.

Naruto made a face. "No." _I don't know if I want to._

"You can't leave it nameless forever," the girl frowned. "Trainers who don't care for their pokémon as individuals or who are just plain lazy don't give their creatures names."

"I'm still thinking about it," Naruto muttered and stuck out his tongue at her.

"It'll be nameless forever, then," Sasuke snorted.

"Hey, bastard!" Naruto fumed. "You—"

"Behave children," Obito sighed. "It's too early."

"Yessir," Naruto grumbled with a pout.

Sasuke's response was his usual, "Hn."

"…Well, what are you thinking of evolving it into?" Sakura asked after a lengthy pause.

"No idea," Naruto replied. _I don't know if I want to._

"I don't think you'd go for another umbreon, so that leaves six choices," the girl said thoughtfully. "Do you have any evolution stones?"

"Just a _thunderstone_, but that's for Bolt," the blond boy answered.

"Unless you want to spend a lot of money on a stone, that leaves three choices," Sakura thought aloud. "And since the closest 'icy rock' is in Iron Country, that narrows the choices to two: leafeon and espeon."

Naruto made a face. "I'll think about it later. Can we talk about something else?"

"Like what?" she wanted to know.

"Anything," the blond boy shrugged.

"Like your mother's wedding?" Sakura suggested hopefully.

Naruto groaned. _Why me?_

* * *

><p>When Shino Aburame had learned that new pokémon from a distant continent would soon be available closer to home, he had been most intrigued. As soon as his pokédex had been updated with new information, he had studied the new bug pokémon with great interest. He had memorized their names and appearances and had fervently hoped to acquire them all as soon as possible.<p>

He hadn't dared dream that he would have a chance at them so soon, however. This special safari was something of a godsend to him, and well worth his signing a waiver that would allow his "commemorative photograph" to also possibly be used in Safari Zone advertising. Now, aside from the eevee (his second non-bug pokémon), he had collected a venonat and all but one of the newly imported bug pokémon species.

_I have accomplished much on this trip,_ he thought. _My family will be pleased with new specimens to study. Missing a single species is no failing, especially when it is considered to be the rarest—_

"Hey, I think I see something!" Kiba called out.

"Try to keep your voice down," Rin warned. "You could spook it."

Shino moved to Kiba's side where he could see what his comrade saw, and then he smiled behind the high collar of his coat.

_It is a very good thing that I strived for efficiency in my captures,_ he thought as he spread some bait to lure the insect closer. While larva-like creature was distracted, he pulled one of his few remaining safari-balls from his pocket. _A very good thing indeed…_

* * *

><p>The hiding place had been almost perfect for the eevee troop. Its only drawback had been a complete lack of food or water. And so, reluctantly, they'd broken up into small groups and slunk out of cover to slake their thirsts and fill their bellies.<p>

The gray one found herself traveling with the old scarred one and the aggressive one who wished to drive the hunting humans away. It was late morning and they'd already found water to drink and a few tasty berries. If their luck held, they'd find more food and make it back to the hiding spot without any trouble.

But then their luck ran out.

Their path ran parallel to one of the dirt trails and just up ahead a group of humans came into view. There were four of them, and the largest one was riding upon the back of a fiery rapidash. And several lengths ahead of the group trotted a fearsome houndoom…which smelled their presence very quickly.

_:Up ahead!:_ the devil dog growled lowly. _:I smell something!:_

_ :Run!:_ the scarred one hissed and threw his shoulder into the gray one to spur her into motion. _:Away from the trail!:_

_ :I'll stall them,:_ the aggressive one growled and ran _towards_ the humans. _:They'll just follow us otherwise.:_

_ :You fool! Come back!:_ the scarred one yelped, but it was too late.

The aggressive one had already _tackled_ the houndoom and drawn all attention to himself.

_:He's doomed,:_ the scarred one muttered and jostled the gray one again. _:We need to move now!:_

The gray one hesitated before turning away and bolting into the forest.

_One more friend gone…how many more will I lose?_

* * *

><p>Katsuro Kurohi really hated the Safari Zone. It was supposed to be a place where hundreds of rare pokémon were there for the catching. But in spite of all his efforts, he'd barely gotten anything, and now time was running out.<p>

_This stupid park has stupid rules! _he fumed. _If I was allowed to use my pokémon to weaken these stupid new monsters I'd have tons of awesome stuff. But because I can't do that these damn things keep running away from me!_

Another sore spot was Ken-Ichi. He despised the wimp for thinking up the idea to come here, and for catching the most creatures in their group. The guy was a goody-goody and a suck-up, and the only reason they were traveling together was that the only way his mother would let him leave the country was if he went with traveling companions.

There weren't many young trainers from the Land of Whirlpools who cared to travel beyond the mainland beaches for any length of time. Even Kasturo and Hayato had been uneasy going all the way to the Land of Grass to visit this dump. But Ken-Ichi had wheedled and persuaded and promised them pokémon that their peers would never be able to get.

_I shouldn't have let that wuss talk me into this place. It's a total bust! When I get home I'm going to be a laughing-stock._

So far, Kasturo had only captured four pokémon. And of those four, there was only one that he really considered worth having. It would take a long time and a lot of work, but it would be worth it to crush weakling trainers with a nightmare-ish three-headed dark dragon.

_All my cousins will be so jealous,_ he gloated. _If they dare laugh in my face for catching so few critters, I'll make them cry with my new dragon. Deino doesn't look like much, but when it grows up into __**hydreigon**__…_

For a short while, his grumpy mood faded as he daydreamed how much more awesome he'd be once his deino was all grown up.

Of course, that would take a long time to happen. It had taken years for his bagon to grow into the salamence that he had today—more than twice as long as it had taken for his charmander to fully evolve into a charizard. So he would probably be close to thirty years old when he finally raised up his new dragon.

_It'll be worth it, _he reminded himself. _It'll totally be worth it. If only I got more beasts like Hellraiser…_

He still had four safari-balls left, but with how prone to fleeing all the stupid pokémon seemed to be he didn't have much hope of getting anything more. And they'd left the new section of the Safari Zone behind, which meant that anything he encountered would be relatively ordinary. Sure, there were tons of species that weren't native to his island nation, but they could be found on the mainland if he was willing to do enough traveling to find them.

And he had no desire to go gallivanting all over the vast continent in order to seek out rare pokémon. All he wanted to do right now was get out of this stupid park and back to his stomping grounds in Whirlpool Country. Once back home, he could—

The trail that his group was following passed through a small meadow, full of flowers and a few berry bushes. He caught a glimpse of some eevees stuffing their faces with blueberries and reached for his remaining collection of empty safari-balls. One looked perfectly ordinary, but the other…was gray.

_That one's mine!_

It would probably be useless for battling, but that wasn't why he wanted it. The creature would be the ultimate chick magnet—cute, small, fluffy, and unique. And it would make his cousins and neighbors absolutely green with envy.

Katsuro stalked his prey with care. He wouldn't let this critter flee and escape him! But when he was only a few yards away and ready to make his throw, the ordinary eevee saw him and squeaked in alarm.

Cursing under his breath at the loss of surprise, he hurled the camouflage-patterned sphere with all of his might. It missed the one that he wanted and hit the ordinary one while the gray one bolted for the nearest edge of the forest. Gnashing his teeth, Katsuro gave chase.

"Come back here!" he bellowed as he ran. "You're mine!"

His gray eevee darted into the woods and slalomed around tree trunks and clumps of weeds in an attempt to shake him. Katsuro refused to be deterred and kept up the chase even as his lungs burned and his legs grew heavy. He threw two more balls, which missed completely, before he tripped over a tree root and ate dead leaves and dirt. When he staggered back to his feet, his eevee was nowhere in sight.

"You can't hide from me!" he shouted at the surrounding trees. "I'll find you and catch you! You're mine, you hear? _Mine_!"

A few minutes later, Hayato caught up to him and pressed his two missed safari-balls into his hands.

"You dropped these," Hayato grinned.

Kasturo sneered and shoved the spheres into his pocket as he looked around for any hint as to where his eevee had run off to. Hayato was a slimy little suck-up without much of a spine. But he was the sort of suck-up that Katsuro liked—the kind that sucked-up only to him.

"You shouldn't run off like that," the Safari Zone guide said when he caught up, but Katsuro ignored him.

"You caught an eevee," Ken-Ichi said and held out a third safari-ball.

"I don't want that one," Katsuro snarled and shoved the ball back at Ken-Ichi's face. "You keep it."

"But it's in your safari-ball—"

"You keep it!" Katsuro repeated harshly. "Or get rid of it. I don't care! That's not the one that I want."

"Don't worry about it," the guide said quietly to Ken-Ichi. "I'll just report that he gave it to you as a gift. The balls aren't formally registered to trainer accounts until after we get back to the gates anyway."

Again Katsuro didn't pay much attention to the man in the khaki uniform. The Safari Zone employee wasn't all that important; he was just there to make sure that there was no cheating and that no one got eaten. What mattered to Katsuro was getting his eevee.

_You can run, but you can't hide…because you're __**mine**__!_

* * *

><p>Naruto plopped down beside one of the many streams that cut through the Safari Zone and sighed. They were close to the exit now and Obito had called for a break before they pushed on to the park's gates. In about an hour and a half, his group's Safari Zone adventure would be over…<p>

"I still can't believe how aggressive that eevee was," Sakura remarked as she sat down underneath a nearby tree on the other side of the trail.

Not long after they'd returned to the original grounds of the Safari Zone, a crazy eevee had attacked their party. It had exploded out of the undergrowth with little warning and _tackled_ Ash. Before the houndoom could recover from the surprise attack, the eevee had darted between Wildfire's hooves, almost spooking the rapidash into tossing Obito from his back. And then the eevee had gone for Sakura's legs.

Sasuke had intervened before the small brown pokémon could attack the girl. It destroyed two of his safari-balls before succumbing to capture in his third and final capsule. Now the Uchiha boy had used up all his balls, leaving Naruto with the only chance of catching anything else before they left the park and their safari ended.

"Yeah," Obito agreed as he leaned heavily on his walking stick. "Eevees are pretty timid in general. They'll run before they fight. I have no idea what got into that one."

"Well, thank you for taking care of it, Sasuke-kun," the pink-haired girl beamed.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted from his seat on a fallen log, still a bit sour that he'd had to work so hard to catch it.

Naruto slipped off his backpack and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. Behind him he half-listened to Sakura think up theories on why Sasuke's new eevee seemed to be crazy. Then, after a little hesitation, he plucked the lone pokéball from his belt and snapped it open.

_"Vee!"_ the eevee squeaked and immediately started looking around.

"Don't go too far," he warned the fluff ball. "We'll be leaving here in about twenty minutes."

The baby eevee laid down on the stream bank and dipped a paw in the water, squealing delightedly at the ripples that it made.

"And don't fall in the water," he sighed and leaned back to stare up into the blue sky.

_What a nice day it is today…_

* * *

><p>The gray one was all alone, a state of being that she had never experienced before. When she had hatched from her egg, her parents had been there to love, feed, and teach her. First her father and then later her mother had been harvested by humans, but by that time she had found many friends and so their loss hadn't been crippling. But now all her friends had been harvested or were in other corners of the park and she was alone.<p>

And she was hunted.

She shivered at the fresh memory of the large, cruel human who had taken the scarred one away and had not been satisfied. No human had tried to chase her down like he had. And he had declared that she belonged to him, even though he hadn't been able to confine her.

_I wish that I wasn't different,_ the gray one whimpered and huddled in a clump of ferns. _For some reason I always attract the harvesters. And they always take my friends away._

A rustling sound made the gray one prick her ears. It sounded like something small but clumsy was bounding through the woods. She sniffed at the air for a hint of what was coming—

The fern fronds parted and an eevee tumbled almost into the gray one. It was small with a short neck ruff and floppy ears—traits which indicated that it was less than a week old. The little eevee blinked at her and then beamed.

_:Friend!:_

_ :…Hello,:_ the gray one said. _:Where are your mother and father, little one?:_

The baby eevee stared at her blankly and the gray one suppressed a shiver. Sometimes the parents were harvested by humans before their egg had a chance to hatch, leaving the newborn orphaned. Usually some older monster would take pity on the ignorant orphan and would foster it, but that took time…

_:Who looks after you, little one? Do you know?:_ the gray one asked.

_:Naruto!:_ the baby squealed. Then he tilted his head at her. _:Play?:_

The gray one frowned at the name the baby provided. The way that other pokémon identified themselves varied widely between species and even between different groups of the same species. If the baby had been adopted by a non-eevee, it should name that creature's species. And if the baby had been taken in by another eevee, she'd probably recognize the identifier as she knew most of the eevees in the area, at least as acquaintances.

But who or what was a Naruto?

It's couldn't be a _human_ name…could it?

_:Play?:_ the baby asked again, crouching down in a playful posture.

_:Can you tell me about this Naruto?:_ the gray one asked gently.

The baby frowned in thought. _:Naruto…is…Naruto.:_

_ :Okay,:_ the gray one sighed. _:…Can you show me Naruto?:_

That seemed to be the right question to ask. The little eevee immediately bounded off the way that it had come. The gray one had to rush to follow him.

The baby ran to the stream and then raced along the bank with the gray one following a few paces behind. He crashed through a screen of bushes and into a small open area where the human-created trail brushed up against the water. The gray one stopped—open areas by human trails were dangerous—and proceeded more carefully to the leafy barrier. And it was a good thing that she did.

One human sat by the stream and there were probably more nearby. This human was much smaller than the cruel one with bright yellow hair and odd markings on his face. The baby eevee trotted right up to the human and braced his forepaws on the boy's knee.

_:Naruto!:_

"You want something?" the boy asked, turning his blue eyes away from the glittering stream.

Horror arced through the gray one. The baby eevee had been taken in by the worst possible thing. And he was far too ignorant to realize it.

Humans were harvesters. They took what monsters they wanted and grew angry when they were thwarted. The pokémon that they collected were taken away and never returned, leaving friends and family without any clue to their ultimate fate.

_:Naruto!:_ The baby bounded over to the bush where the gray one crouched and wiggled with excitement. _:Friend!:_

_ :No!:_ the gray one whispered frantically. _:No, don't let him see me!:_

"You want to go that way?" The boy frowned. "We can't go that way. We need to go the other way so that we can leave."

_:Friend!:_ the baby insisted and ran back and forth in front of the bush. _:Friend, friend, friend!:_

"I'm sorry, but we can't play right now," the boy said. "We'll be moving on in a few minutes."

_:What are you babbling about?:_ A houndoom stalked over to where the baby eevee was prancing. _:Why do you keep saying…:_ The horned dog narrowed his eyes at the bush. _:Who's in there?:_

_ :Friend!:_ the baby chirped.

"What, is something in the bush?" the boy asked.

_:Friend, huh?:_ the houndoom rumbled and moved a paw towards the leaves that hid the gray one.

"Hey, Midori!" another human voice called out. "Your group done?"

"Almost," a third sighed.

"Hey, Shrimp," a dark voice growled as a shadow fell over the boy with yellow hair. "You seen my eevee?"

The gray one was instantly paralyzed with fear.

_The cruel one!_

* * *

><p>Naruto squinted up at the hulking bully, Katsuro. The jerk's group had come along the trail and Obito had hailed them. And the jerk himself had locked onto Naruto and come storming over with an especially nasty look on his face.<p>

"Well?" Katsuro snarled.

"No, I haven't seen your eevee," Naruto answered. _I have no idea what your eevee looks like, Jerk._

"If you see it, give it back to me," the older boy demanded and walked off as suddenly as he'd come. "Let's go, it's not here."

"Coming," Hayato said as he jogged after Katsuro down the path.

Ken-Ichi just shook his head as he followed.

Midori, who had been in the middle of a conversation with Obito, had to break off and rush after them.

"Man, I hate my group," the guide muttered as he vanished.

When they were all out of sight, Naruto made a rude face in their general direction.

"That guy was kind of scary," Sakura shuddered. "I hope he'd gone by the time we make it in."

"Well, might as well get going," Obito shrugged and gestured for Wildfire to lay down so that he count get in the saddle. "There's no lunch waiting for us in the park today."

Naruto gathered up his backpack and turned towards the trail, but Ash and the little eevee still were standing by the bush. "C'mon, we're going now."

Instead of listening to him, the baby eevee disappeared into the leaves.

"Hey!" He bent over and fished around in the bushes for the little eevee. "Come out of there and—"

The eevee that he pulled out of the bush was gray.

"…Uwah!" Naruto yelped and dropped it. "A ghost eevee!"

That immediately drew his group's attention.

"What?" Sakura squeaked.

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke sighed.

"There's no such thing as a ghost eevee," Obito chuckled as Wildfire carefully stood back up.

The bush shook and the gray eevee dove into view with the baby eevee riding on its back and was chewing on its ear. Sasuke and Sakura gaped at it. Obito lifted his sunglasses and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

"…However, eevees can apparently have a ghost-like coloration," the elder Uchiha added.

"I wish I still had some safari-balls left," Sakura moaned.

Sasuke didn't say anything but his face clearly said that he wished he hadn't wasted his safari-balls on the ordinary, if aggressive, eevee that had attacked earlier.

"You still have a safari-ball left…go for it," Obito suggested.

"Mmm…" Naruto plucked the little eevee off the gray one. "…How about you get it, Obito? I don't need another eevee."

"Oh, do not tempt me!" the adult Uchiha gasped. "I work here! The only time I can catch any pokémon in the park is if I come in on one of my days off as a paying customer, _or_ if the boss decides to let us employees catch _one pokémon_ as part of our yearly bonus. If I go after that eevee, I will get fired, and I like my job."

"Oh," Naruto mumbled and rubbed at his scarred cheek with his free hand, while the little eevee wriggled in the other.

The gray eevee stared up at him and he found its dark eyes to be strangely sad. Then it timidly turned to Ash and appeared to have a lengthy conversation with the houndoom. And then the ghostly eevee crept over to his right leg and pawed at him.

_…There has got to be some god out there that hates me,_ Naruto decided as he reluctantly took his last safari-ball out of his pocket. _First everyone seemed to be getting eevees. Then my egg hatched into an eevee. And now this._

The camouflaged ball dropped from his hand, bounced off the gray eevees head, drew it inside in a burst of light, and then the red capture light went dark after barely a twitch.

_"Vee!"_ the baby cried in delight.

_Now I need to nickname __**two**__ eevees…_


	9. Part IX

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part IX_

"Well that was fun!" Naruto remarked as he and his group stepped through the large gates of the Safari Zone.

"There's still a few things you all need to do before you can run off," Obito warned as he limped along with the aid of his walking stick.

"Like what?" Sasuke muttered grumpily.

"You need to fill out a survey and get your commemorative photograph taken with all the pokémon you've captured," Obito answered. "And you need to pick up the pokémon and pokéballs you checked in at the start of this safari."

"I'm skipping the photo," the younger Uchiha decided.

"You can't," their guide chuckled. "Didn't you pay attention to the paperwork you signed at the start?"

"What? The waivers that we signed?" Naruto blinked.

"Yep," Obito nodded. "One stated that you know it's potentially dangerous out in the park and won't sue the Safari Zone if you get hurt, and the other was an agreement to get your picture taken and permission to use that picture in future advertising."

"Hn!" Sasuke almost snarled.

"Oh cheer up!" the man laughed. "I'm sure that your mother will find the picture adorable."

Obito led them into the clump of buildings towards the main lodge. Just in front of the large building was a huge sign with the Safari Zone logo on it. And that was where it seemed that the pictures were being taken.

There was a photographer there with two assistants, boxes of camera equipment, and a fancy camera set up on a tripod. The group currently being photographed was one that Naruto was familiar with. Chouji sat off to the side eating a bag of potato chips with Shikamaru apparently napping, while Ino carefully arranged her new monsters for her picture.

The blonde girl kept changing her mind about the placement of her ten creatures. She perched an eevee on each shoulder, held a tepig in her arms, framed herself with a trio of floating munnas, had a gothita standing by her left foot, and a petilil by her right foot. But she kept moving her maractus and sigilyth around, and the photographer looked very annoyed with her.

Naruto jogged over to where his two friends sat waiting with their pokémon, eager to check in with them.

"Hey guys, what's—_argh!_"

Something black with red eyes that seemed connected somehow to a golden face mask floated towards his face and Naruto yelped and ducked.

"Osiris," Shikamaru sighed. "Leave him alone."

The shadowy thing reluctantly backed off and moved to float near where Shikamaru was stretched out flat on the grass. A litwick sat beside him while an eevee napped on his chest. And wandering around him were several green-coated deerling grazing.

"What is it?" Naruto gasped, eyeing the shadow-and-mask creature warily.

"A yamask," the Nara boy replied. "A pure ghost type."

Naruto shivered and hugged himself.

"I got a ghost, too!" Chouji said cheerfully and patted a bluish-green monster that sat beside him that looked like a cross between a robot and an ancient clay statue. "It's a golett."

"…Cool," Naruto replied as he cautiously eyed the golem-like thing. _It's a good thing I didn't find one—I might've got __**another**__ ghost by mistake!_

The Akimichi beamed and fed his own eevee one of his potato chips. A cubchoo with a snotty nose was already munching on a pawful of chips while a sandile stared at the snack food enviously. An ice cream cone-like vanillite was being chased around by a trubbish, which was being chased by a roggenrola.

Naruto looked over the group of pokémon. "Hey, Shikamaru, are all these deerling yours?"

"Yep," Shikamaru muttered.

"He got eight of them!" Chouji added.

"Eight?" Naruto choked. "Why'd you get so many?"

"Most of them are for my family," the Nara boy answered.

Naruto tilted his head as he watched one of the plant-like deer descend on a clump of clover plants. "What are they going to do with some many of them?"

"My family use stantler antlers to make medicine," Shikamaru said, slowly sitting up so that the eevee on his chest slid into his lap. "When deerling evolves, it gets antlers too. And as they're part grass-type, that increases their potential as medicinal ingredients. The more specimens that I can give them, the better."

"Oh!" Naruto nodded in understanding. "I get it."

"Alright," the weary photographer said. "Smile!"

The camera clicked, flashed, and then Ino was bustling over to the sidelines with her monster collection following in her wake.

"Your turn, Chouji!" she sang. "Hey there Naruto, Forehead Girl, Sasuke-kun!"

"Ino-pig!" Sakura growled, her green eyes spitting sparks.

Sasuke pointedly ignored the flirtatious wink that the blonde girl threw in his direction.

"Only one group at a time is allowed by the photographers," Obito said and gently tapped Naruto on the head with his walking stick. "This way, children," he said and beckoned towards the main lodge. "Your turn for pictures will come soon enough."

Inside the lodge a bunch of tables and chairs had been set up. There were a few other groups there scribbling away at the surveys that Obito had mentioned. Chikara, the owner, was also present and chatting with one of the groups with his pair of chatots still riding his shoulders.

Their group settled at one of the free tables and waited. Obito waved over another staffer who came over and provided the surveys and pencils to fill them out, as well as some sort of paperwork for their guide to work on. But before they could get started, Chikara swept up to them, leaning some of his bulk on their table.

"Good afternoon!" he smiled. "I trust that your safari was exciting and eventful?"

"Yeah," Naruto smiled.

"Yes, sir," Sakura replied.

Sasuke just nodded sharply.

"Excellent." The hefty man's eyes drifted over the young trainers briefly before locking on to Naruto. "You were the one with the egg, right? Has it hatched yet?"

"Um, yeah," Naruto nodded, surprised.

"Show me!" Chikara commanded jovially. "It's rare that a trainer brings an egg into the park, and rarer still that it hatches there."

Naruto blinked and hesitantly brought out the pokéball and released the hatchling onto the tabletop.

_"Vee!"_

"Ah, an eevee," Chikara nodded approvingly and patted the baby on the head. "And what is this fine little fellow's name?"

"Uh…" Naruto's brain went very unhelpfully blank. _I don't know!_

The baby eevee leaned back to stare up at the man in the garish, rock star-like outfit with a puzzled expression. _"Vee?"_

"Vee!" Naruto latched onto the vocalization. "His name is Vee." _…Wait, crap, that's dumb!_

But it was too late to take it back and Chikara nodded gravely. "A good name."

The Safari Zone owner turned his attention to Naruto's comrades and the blond boy relaxed a little. Vee was intrigued by the pieces of paper on the table and tried to chew on them. Naruto moved the surveys out of the eevee's reach and took a quick peek at some of the questions.

_Ugh, it's almost like a school assignment…_

Chikara exchanged some pleasantries with Sakura and tried to start a little conversation with Sasuke with little success. Then he had a quiet chat with Obito. Naruto expected him to leave, but whatever Obito told him brought the large man's attention back to the blond boy.

"Tell me, young man, you have acquired a pokémon that is unusually-colored, correct?" he asked, leaning in so close that Naruto started to edge back in his chair.

"Uh…yeah?" the boy squeaked.

"How lucky for you!" Chikara smiled and winked. "You get two photographs, young man."

And then the odd, large man with his chatots bustled off elsewhere in the lodge, leaving Naruto scratching his head.

_What the heck?_

* * *

><p>Demon had not appreciated being "checked-in" at this Safari Zone place. Without being able to hear Naruto's voice he had no way to gauge the time while he sat confined in his pokéball and waited. It was like being trapped in limbo, and he was very glad when it was over and he was released again.<p>

The ninetales found himself in the corner of a large room dotted with tables and populated by a few small groups of humans. Naruto was there, along with the pink-haired girl and the sullen black-haired boy. There was also an adult with black hair, orange sunglasses, scars, and a walking stick sitting awkwardly in a chair with them.

"Wow," the strange adult whistled softly. "I really, _really _need you to pick some lottery numbers for me."

_:Friend!:_

A small body snuggled up against Demon's foreleg and he looked down to find a little eevee staring up at him.

_:Um…:_

"Hey, Demon, this is Vee," Naruto said, gesturing to the very friendly little eevee. "He hatched from that egg that Mom gave me."

_:Oh.:_ Demon blinked down at the brown fluff ball. _:Er…hi?:_

Naruto uncorked Bolt and the pikachu gaped at the baby eevee when he was informed of its origin.

_:Friend!:_ Vee squealed and immediately turned his attention to the electric mouse.

_:Yes…yes, we'll be friends,:_ Bolt smiled and hugged the little eevee.

_:Yay!:_ Vee cried, wiggling in delight.

_:Cheerful little thing, isn't he?:_ Demon muttered. _ I wonder if I was that stupid when I was a hatchling._

Bolt shot him a brief glare before ignoring him completely.

Naruto then released another monster, this time from an odd camouflage-colored pokéball. It was a more mature eevee, and female according to Demon's nose. And instead of being brown, she was gray.

"And this is Eve," Naruto said. "Be nice to her, okay?"

_:…You're different,:_ Bolt blurted out in shock.

The gray eevee flinched and seemed to curl in on herself, her dark eyes darting around as if seeking some escape route.

_:She's fine,:_ Demon said, smacking the pikachu in the back of the head with one of his blue-tipped tails. _:Don't say stupid things.:_

_:Hey!:_ Bolt squeaked indignantly. _:You—:_

_:Play?:_ Vee cried eagerly.

_:N-no,:_ Eve gulped nervously. _:They weren't playing, little one. Come here.:_

Vee cheerfully padded over to her side and chirped happily when she started tongue-grooming his ear. Bolt tugged on his right ear and stared at Eve, as if she was something more puzzling than an eevee of a different color. Demon rolled his eyes at that reaction and turned his attention to Naruto. The boy had another safari-ball in his hand—like he was debating on whether or not to unleash something else—and he looked very troubled as he watched the two eevees interact.

"Hey, Naruto!" The boy with the odd red marks on his cheeks that loved dogs jogged over with his constant growlithe companion. "Have you…no _way_!" He pointed at the pair of eevees. "You got _that one_?"

"Uh, yeah," Naruto shrugged, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Akamaru trotted right up to the pair and sniffed at them. _:Huh, how come you're not brown?:_

_:Friend?:_ Vee wondered, tilting his head at the fire dog.

_:Eh?:_ Akamaru snorted. _:Don't be stupid! You don't follow Kiba; you're not part of my pack. We're not friends.:_

_ :…Huh?:_ Vee blinked, apparently baffled by this answer.

_:He's just a hatchling._ _He's too young to understand,:_ Demon sighed. _If he thinks that every pokémon that he meets is his friend, how is he going to be able to fight seriously?_

_:Oh.:_ Akamaru returned his attention to Eve. _:So, how come you're not brown?:_

_ :I…I don't know,:_ Eve gulped, cringing away from the growlithe.

_:Aw, c'mon,:_ Akamaru whined. _:It's a simple question.:_

Demon frowned and placed himself between the growlithe and the eevees. _:Buzz off you nosey dog. She's not brown for the same reason for the same reason that I'm not yellow.:_

Akamaru huffed and returned to his master's side.

"Man, now you have _two_ of them," Kiba grumbled. "How'd you catch it?"

"Well, Vee was playing around in a bush and I tried to pull him out, but I grabbed the gray one instead. She talked to Obito's houndoom, I guess, and then…it was like she begged me to take her," Naruto said with a shrug.

"No way," Kiba scoffed.

"That's how I saw it," Sakura chimed in from her seat at the table. "Naruto didn't even want her and it was like she was trying to climb up his leg."

"You didn't want that eevee?" Kiba sputtered in disbelief.

"My egg had already hatched into an eevee so it wasn't like I needed another one," Naruto answered weakly.

"You're crazy," Kiba said and shook his head. "Shikamaru and Chouji are never going to believe this."

The canine-loving boy walked off, still shaking his head, with his puppy in tow. Demon watched them go and then poked at the pokéball still in Naruto's hands with his nose. The blond boy jumped and looked at the object in his grasp like he'd forgotten it had existed.

"Uh, I was going to let everyone out so that you could meet before the picture, but there's not nearly enough room in here," Naruto explained. "But I'm going to need your help with this one," he said, giving significant looks to both Demon and Bolt. "She's a sneaky one and I'm afraid that she'll cause trouble when it's time for the picture to be taken. So…meet Kitsune."

A little black fox appeared from the green-splotched ball capsule. It had sharp blue eyes, red paws, and the tip of the tuft of fur on its head was red. The creature glowered fiercely at him, Bolt, the eevees (although the gray one made it do a slight double-take), and Naruto.

_:What are you supposed to be?:_ Demon demanded.

_:Friend!:_ Vee cried happily and pounced upon the mysterious black fox.

_:Get off of me, you moron!:_ Kitsune snarled. _:I'm not your friend; I don't even like you!:_

_ :Hey, he's just a baby! There's no reason to be so mean to him,:_ Bolt scolded.

_:I don't listen to stupid human slaves like you!:_ Kitsune barked and shoved the friendly little eevee away roughly.

_:Play?:_ Vee asked hopefully, crouching down and wagging his fluffy tail.

_:I don't think that she wants to play, little one,:_ Eve said.

_:You haven't answered my question,:_ Demon growled. _:And I am most certainly not a 'stupid human slave'!:_

_:If you submit to a human, you're a worthless idiot,:_ the black creature sneered.

_:Hey!:_ Electricity danced over Bolt's red cheeks. _:We're not worthless idiots!:_

Kitsune gave him a disdainful look that morphed into a nasty little smirk. She hopped into the air, flipped, glowed, and when she landed she appeared to be a male pikachu that looked suspiciously like Bolt. But the imitation was imperfect—the second pikachu had badly crossed eyes, a droopy ear, pigeon toes, and a bit of drool leaking out of the corner of its mouth.

_:Wah!:_ Bolt yelped and jumped back at the sudden transformation. But when the mockery of it sank in, much bigger sparks flashed from his electric sacs. _:You…! You…!:_

_:Funny!:_ Vee giggled.

_:That's so mean,:_ Eve murmured.

Demon frowned as he studied the insulting likeness. It looked very real, very solid, but when he glanced at the shadow it cast…it didn't match. The black fox hadn't truly transformed, she'd just generated some kind of illusion. So Demon cracked her over the head with one of his tails and stood to loom over her as the false image fell apart.

_:Now you listen here,:_ he growled. _:You are going to behave yourself, and if you don't I will set your tail on fire!:_ He snorted, spraying a few fiery sparks around her for emphasis. _:Do you get me?:_

She glared up at him defiantly, but in the end she crumbled under his steady, unimpressed stare.

_:She's awful,:_ Bolt sniffed. _:She should be your girlfriend, Demon.:_

The silver ninetales flicked one of his tails into the pikachu's face.

* * *

><p>It was hard for Naruto to produce a natural smile as he stood for his picture. Unlike Ino, who had insisted on arranging her own photo, he'd been quite content to let the professional do his job. What had really worried him was that it could all fall apart before the shutter could click closed.<p>

Vee didn't seem the least bit interested in sitting still on the sidelines and staying out of the way of the boring box perched on three legs (since he hadn't originated in the park, he wasn't allowed in the picture). Mushi the joltik didn't seem _able_ to sit still for more than a few seconds. Gamatatsu had inadvertently started a small fight between Gator and the ducklett he'd captured for his mother by flopping around like a fish out of water and there was still a hint of tension hovering around the three of them. Eve seemed overwhelmed by the wide variety of pokémon around her and sort of terrified by the mysterious camera that she had to pose for. There hadn't been any issues with Rasen, Flurry, or Onibi so far, but…then there was Kitsune.

To hopefully insure that she didn't bolt again, he had Bolt, Demon, Sandy, and Gamakichi arrayed around the group just outside of the frame. So, seeing no escape route, she'd settled for constantly invoking her _illusion_ ability just before the photographer was about to take the picture. That made everyone tense and increasingly cranky and dragged out the picture-taking process into a torture session.

Sasuke hadn't had any problems with his pokémon for the photo shoot. His purloin, deino, pawniard, tynamo, blitzle, snivy, and mienfoo had been perfectly well behaved, and his eevee had seemed too depressed to cause any trouble. The only problem was in getting the Uchiha boy to smile without looking angry.

And Sakura's photo had gone even better. Her alomomola, audino, blitzle, solosis, cottonee, axew, porygon, and torchic had really gotten into the experience, posing with enthusiasm. Of their party, Sakura was clearly the photographer's favorite.

_Why me?_ Naruto sighed as he stood there and waited with dread. _No one else had so many problems with their picture!_

Just before his group had been up for their pictures, Kiba, Hinata, and Shino had done it with all the ease that Sakura and Sasuke had.

Shino's picture had consisted almost entirely of bug pokémon. The photographer's female assistant had been very creeped out by the small swarm, and the lone eevee had looked lost among the insects. Naruto recognized the venonat and the joltik Shino had, but the dwebble, durant, sewaddle, venipede, shelmet, karrablast, and larvesta were critters that he'd had to look up in his pokédex.

Kiba had been very irritated when he hadn't been allowed to let Akamaru in the picture when it had been his turn. Naruto knew about most of the pokémon that had been featured with Kiba, but he'd been surprised by the number of lillipups—he'd expected to see two and saw six instead. When he'd asked the Inuzuka about that, Kiba had explained that most of the puppies were destined for his mother and sister, who would evaluate their potential for a new breeding line.

When Hinata had been photographed, they'd had some trouble keeping her from getting embarrassed and turning red. She'd had a nice collection of cute pokémon that both photography assistants couldn't help but comment on. Her chikorita, ducklett, emolga, and minccino had basked in the attention while her audino, pidove, woobat, and eevee had been just as bashful as the Hyuuga girl herself.

"Alright," the weary photographer sighed. "Let's try this one last time…"

Naruto held his breath as he smiled and…

_Click!_

"Fantastic!" the photographer gushed. "Now, if you could just move along—"

The male photography assistant tugged on his boss's arm and whispered something into his ear.

"Ah, yes, you're also scheduled for a second picture," the photographer said. "If you can send all of your pokémon except for that beautiful eevee of yours off to the side, we'll get this over with as quickly as possible."

With a little coaxing, Naruto shooed most of his creatures off to the side where Sasuke and Sakura were impatiently waiting. Now that they were free from the agony of standing still for the picture, most of his monsters were much more relaxed. Kitsune tried to slip away from the group, but Demon was right on her and held her in place by stepping on her tail with his right forepaw.

"Now come closer so that we can get a nice tight shot," the photographer instructed.

Naruto followed the instructions the man gave him and stood still as the female assistant arranged a trembling Eve on his shoulder. As he rubbed her fluffy neck to try and calm her down he thought about what he was going to do with her. Sasuke had offered to trade his pawniard for the gray eevee, and Ino had pounced on him when she heard that he had Eve with the demand that she be able to borrow it at least twice since she'd almost caught it.

_What am I going to do?_

"Okay, smile one last time," the photographer commanded as he looked through his viewfinder. "Smile…"

_Click!_

"Beautiful!" he gushed, clasping his hands over his heart. "I would very much like to have a print of this for my portfolio."

"Okay?" Naruto agreed. _What's a portfolio?_

"Thank you!" the man beamed.

"Is everything going well?" Chikara asked as he and his shoulder chatots strode onto the scene with a mousy little Safari Zone employee trotting after him.

"We've just finished with this group, Mr. Chikara," the photographer said with a smile. "Hopefully there won't be too many more to do so that we can get back to my darkroom and start developing the film."

"My staff tells me that there are only two groups of three remaining," the hefty Safari Zone owner replied and then turned to Naruto. "Thank you for standing for a second photograph. It will be displayed in a place of honor beside another very lucky past patron."

The pseudo-rock star gestured to the much smaller and thinner man who had followed him, and the employee uncovered a framed photograph. The picture featured a boy that looked to be about Naruto's age. He was very dark-skinned with strangely fair hair, sunglasses, and baggy clothes. The boy had a smirk on his face and his arm hooked around the neck of a tauros…that was yellow with a bright green mane.

"This special tauros was captured in this park a few decades ago, before I came to own it," Chikara explained.

"Who is he?" Naruto asked curiously.

"His real name is written down in the records somewhere," the employee holding the picture frame shrugged, "but he insisted on being known as 'Killer B'."


	10. Part X

**Let's Go Safari!**

_Part X_

When they reached the park's gates, Katsuro was simmering with rage. Their stupid guide had insisted that they had to leave even though he hadn't tracked down his eevee yet. The only way that he could get it now was if he waited for months until the park was officially reopened and he paid for another safari. It was more than enough to make him see red.

_Someone is going to pay for this!_

* * *

><p>Naruto stood at one of the computer terminals in the Pokémon Center and studied his list of stored pokémon. Now that all of his Safari Zone pokémon had been registered to his account they'd all ended up flashing away to storage since his team was full. He fingered a dusk-ball hanging from his belt and wondered what he should do next, since when he'd tried calling home earlier he'd only gotten the answering machine.<p>

The night that he'd arrived outside of the Safari Zone, he'd swapped out Typhoon for Ginsu before going to bed. He'd intended to challenge Kiba to a fight in the morning to prove that he had an aerodactyl. But that morning the special safari had been announced and he'd completely forgotten his plans until his team had been returned to him and he saw the dusk-ball among his pokéball collection.

_Should I go ahead and battle Kiba, or bring Typhoon back? Or should I shift my whole team around so I can try out some of my new monsters? Or…_

"Isn't the piplup that I caught in the Safari Zone so cute?" a girl squealed as she and her friend took over the computer terminal next to his. "It's a shame that it has to evolve."

"It doesn't have to," her friend said. "If you give it an _everstone_ it'll stay a piplup forever."

"But, _everstones_ are so plain-looking," the first girl complained.

"I saw a shop here that sells all kinds of accessories for pokémon, including stylish collars with _everstones_ set in them," the friend told her.

"Really?" The girl paused thoughtfully. "What shop is it?"

"Um…_Haruka-chan's Pokémon Outfitters_," the friend answered.

While the girls continued to talk about that shop and shopping in general, Naruto thought about the collars that had been mentioned. _Everstones_ blocked all evolution so long as a pokémon was in contact with one, and a collar was a good way to secure the stone in place. The wife of Konoha Town's mayor had an _everstone _collar for her foul-tempered meowth, Tora-chan, because she found meowths infinitely cuter than persians.

_Hmm…I think I need to go shopping,_ Naruto decided.

He made a few changes on the PC before logging off and strolling out the front doors of the Pokémon Center.

* * *

><p>Demon sniffed around the little shop and eyed the wide variety of merchandise on display. There were all kinds of hold items for battle, props for contests, and some decorative items like jewelry that served no purpose other than to make a pokémon look pretty. He even found a rack of <em>soothe bells<em> hung from ribbons of all lengths and colors.

_I remember my old bell…_

Naruto was busy at a back table with the shop's owner. He'd brought both Vee and Eve in to be fitted with _everstone_ collars. Vee was convinced that they were playing some sort of dress-up game and was very enthusiastic about it.

_:More!:_ Vee cried. _:Play more!:_

_Babies are so dumb,_ Demon sighed and poked one of the dangling silver bells with his paw. The gentle chime that the bell gave off brought his mind back to earlier days. And then an idea struck him. He studied all of the bells critically before plucking one hung from a black ribbon with his teeth and trotting back to where Naruto and the eevees were.

Eve had a pale pink collar around her neck, half-hidden by her long silky ruff of white fur. Vee was modeling a black leather collar with metallic studs set into the band along with the smooth gray _everstone_. Judging by the looks on the humans' faces, the selection process was complete.

"Fine choices, young man," the middle-aged woman remarked with a warm smile.

"Thanks." Naruto reached for his little frog money purse. "How much?"

"For both the collars it's 400 _ryo_," she said. "If you want the _soothe bell_, too, it's 550 _ryo_."

"_Soothe bell_?" Naruto blinked, and then he caught sight of what Demon had in his teeth. "You want that?"

_:Not for me,:_ Demon muttered around clenched teeth as he shook his head.

Naruto furrowed his brow in confusion. "For…Kitsune?"

Demon nodded.

"That's a great idea!" Naruto turned back to the shopkeeper. "Yeah, I'll take that, too."

The woman nodded and led him over to the counter where the cash register was located. Naruto carefully counted out paper bills and metal coins to match the price that the woman had stated. She offered him a little bag for the bell, but he waved it off and tucked the item into his pocket instead.

"A pleasure doing business with you, young sir," the woman said with a wink.

"Thank you!" Naruto grinned and walked out of the shop with an eevee under each arm and Demon following close behind.

_:…What happens now?:_ Eve asked softly.

_:What do you mean?:_ Demon wondered.

_:The houndoom said that this boy was a good human, but…I don't know much of what humans __**do**__. All I know is that they capture pokémon and take them away.:_ Eve's ears drooped in misery. _:I surrendered myself because I wanted to help this poor baby, and while nothing bad has happened to me yet I can't help but worry that I've made a mistake…:_

_ :Do you really think that, or are you just upset about what Sasuke's eevee said to you about 'wasting his sacrifice'?: _Demon snorted.

_:I don't know,:_ Eve murmured.

Vee was oblivious to the worried mood of his companion. He was utterly fascinated by all the storefronts that they passed. And even if he had been listening to their conversation it was unlikely that he would've understood Eve's concerns.

_:Well I wouldn't worry too much,:_ Demon shrugged. _:Naruto's not the smartest kid around, but he'd not mean or stupid. Whatever he decides to do it won't be anything bad.:_

_:I suppose so,:_ Eve said. _:He's much better than that cruel boy that claimed to own me even though he didn't catch me, and took my oldest friend away.:_

Any further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Sasuke. The dark-haired boy stepped out of the shadow of a tiny restaurant and brought Naruto to a halt. The other boy's dark gaze lingered on the pale eevee before he looked up and spoke.

"So have you thought about it?"

"I don't like your pawniard," Naruto answered.

"How about the snivy, then?" Sasuke countered.

Naruto shifted uneasily as he thought. "I don't know…"

"Either you want it, or you don't," Sasuke glowered.

"If you're going to be a bastard about it, then no," Naruto replied stubbornly.

Tension spiked around them and Demon found the fur along his spine standing up. Eve tried to shrink into Naruto's coat and Vee finally caught onto the mood of the situation. They were all so focused on the staring contest between the two boys that they never saw it coming.

"You dirty little thief!"

They turned as one towards the shout just as a meaty fist pounded into Naruto's jaw, knocking the blond onto his butt and splitting his lip.

"You stole my eevee!"

* * *

><p>Naruto sat on the ground with a faint ringing in his ear and a coppery taste in his mouth. His jaw throbbed with pain and when his fingers brushed against his chin they came away wet and red. He blinked up at the bully that had knocked him down and blinked owlishly.<p>

"Huh?"

"You heard me!" Katsuro roared.

Demon leapt between him and the bully and sprayed _embers_ at Katsuro's feet, forcing the bigger boy to dance backwards with an angry howl. Eve was hiding herself behind Naruto's back and shivering uncontrollably. Vee sat frozen by Naruto's knee and stared at his bleeding lip with horrified fascination.

"You steal that ninetales, too?" Katsuro demanded as he slapped out a smoldering spot on his left pant leg.

"I didn't steal anythin'," Naruto said, lisping slightly.

"Liar!" Katsuro spat. "You stole my damn eevee!"

"He didn't steal that," Sasuke spoke up. "I watched him catch that eevee."

"That eevee is _mine_!" Katsuro insisted. "Give it back to me right now, or—"

"Hey, what the heck's going on?" Kiba called as he and Akamaru jogged over to the scene. "Who're you?"

"Buzz off, punk!" Katsuro sneered at the Inuzuka. "This doesn't concern you." He shifted his glare to Sasuke. "Or you."

"It concerns me when some stranger is yelling at a friend of mine who's bleeding on the ground," Kiba barked back.

"He thinks that Naruto stole an eevee from him," Sasuke snorted. "But I watched that eevee get captured; it wasn't stolen."

"That. Eevee. Is. _Mine!_" Katsuro bit out each word with an ugly expression on his face. "I'll go through all three of you lousy pipsqueaks of that's what it takes to get it back."

"Who're you calling a 'pipsqueak'?" Kiba snapped and Akamaru growled threateningly.

"So you're ready to steal someone else's pokémon because you can't accept that you didn't catch it yourself?" Sasuke snorted.

"Who's stealing pokémon?" Chouji asked as he and Shikamaru joined the knot of Naruto's friends.

"That guy wants to steal one of Naruto's eevees," Kiba told them. "The jerk already hit him!"

"How many times do I have to tell you morons that that eevee is mine?" Katsuro bellowed.

"Naruto would never take a pokémon that belonged to someone else," Chouji frowned.

"You sound like a sore loser to me," Shikamaru remarked.

Katsuro looked like he was about to explode and he ripped a pokéball off his belt. "That's it! I'm through being nice! Give that eevee back to me now before I take—"

"Katsuro!"

The bully's two followers appeared from around a tent-like temporary market stall. The thin hawk-faced teen was visibly nervous as he took in the scene and didn't come any closer. But the other boy with the red-brown hair stalked right up to the bully.

"We're not in Whirlpool Country anymore," Ken-Ichi said. "You can't get away with pushing kids around like you can back home."

"Shut your mouth, Ken-Ichi. That kid has my eevee and I'm going to get it back," Katsuro growled and leveled an angry finger in Naruto's direction.

"That gray eevee? You never caught it, not even briefly," Ken-Ichi retorted. "You caught this eevee," he set loose an ordinary brown eevee with a scar on its forehead just over its left eye, "and you threw it away."

"An ordinary eevee with an ugly scar is no good," Katsuro replied. "It's more suited to a loser like you. What that little thief took from me, however, is worth something. Now get out of my way before I beat you down, too."

"If you steal that eevee, you'll get arrested. Your family name means nothing out here," Ken-Ichi warned.

Katsuro scowled at him, then grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and shoved him aside with enough force for Ken-Ichi to trip and fall. He popped open the pokéball in his hand and released the charizard that was inside. The dragon-like fire pokémon was big and mean and Naruto's clump of friends edged backwards nervously.

"Char, get that gray eevee for me," Katsuro commanded. "Don't let anything get in your way."

The charizard blasted a puff of smoke from its nostrils and started forward, only to be knocked backwards by Demon's _extrasensory_ attack. As soon as the charizard had regained its footing it surged forward and knocked the ninetales aside with a _wing attack_ before Demon could strike again. In the next second the charizard hit Akamaru with another _wing attack_ before the growlithe could become a problem.

Sasuke, Kiba, Chouji, and Shikamaru scrambled out of the huge monster's way and Kiba headed for Akamaru while the others fumbled with their own pokéballs. Naruto scrabbled backwards, still on his butt, but he didn't get far before he was caught. The charizard grabbed the front of his coat to lift him and reach behind him for Eve…

Naruto's brain seized up. It was like he was back at the fringes of Oto City and the exploud was charging down the slope at him. He couldn't move, he couldn't think, he couldn't do anything—

_"Vee!"_ the baby eevee shrieked and latched onto the charizard's arm with his tiny teeth in a feeble _bite_ attack.

With how weak and inexperienced Vee was, the attack did nothing more than irritate the charizard. Snarling contemptuously the pseudo-dragon let go of Naruto's jacket and flailed his arm until Vee was tossed loose. The little eevee bounced once on the dirt "street" and laid stunned where he landed.

"You jerk!" Naruto screamed.

He somehow managed to scoop up Eve with one arm, stagger upright, and set free another of his monsters with his free hand. There wasn't much space between Naruto and the charizard so as the newcomer reformed and solidified the fire pokémon was forced to take a few steps back. And when the charizard saw what it was, it moved back even more.

_"Aero!"_

"Holy crap, he really does have an aerodactyl!" Kiba hissed.

Ginsu spread his wings wide and hissed threateningly as the charizard started to sweat. Naruto stumbled over to where Vee was and knelt down beside him. Demon interposed himself between Naruto and the bully and his charizard, and for a moment it seemed like it was a stand-off.

"…I don't know how you got that pokémon, but it's not going to save you," Katsuro declared. "Char, don't be a chicken, use _metal claw_!"

The charizard regained its composure and drew back its arm for a slash with its talons taking on a metallic sheen—

A horse's neigh and the sound of pounding hooves heralded the speedy arrival of a rapidash and its rider. The burning horse almost bowled Katsuro over and very effectively distracted the charizard from its attack. The rider glowered down at the older teen and held his walking stick like he was thinking of hitting Katsuro with it.

"No fighting allowed in the marketplace outside of the Safari Zone," Obito said coldly. "So either knock it off or move it out into the grasslands where there's no chance for property damage. If you persist, we'll lock you up in a shed and call the cops from Kusa City to come and arrest you."

Katsuro almost argued, but then Rin caught up to Obito with a sturdy miltank at her side. And just behind her jogged a white-faced Hinata with her riolu at her heels. The bully looked over the forces arrayed against him and with obvious reluctance recalled his charizard back to its pokéball.

"That brat stole my eevee," Katsuro complained with an angry wave in Naruto's direction. "That gray eevee is mine, damn it!"

"I watched him catch that eevee," Obito replied. "It's Naruto's free and clear."

The eighteen-year-old looked about ready to explode in fresh fury, but he held himself back and a nasty smirk slowly blossomed on his face. "…Naruto? That's that little brat's name? How lame! What, is his mother some stupid soup fanatic?"

"You shut up about my mom, you jerk!" Naruto yelled, rubbing his sleeve over his lip and smearing it with blood.

"What's your name?" Rin demanded.

"Katsuro Kurohi," the bully replied. "Why'd you want to know?"

"I'm going to go to Boss Chikara and argue for you to be banned from the premises for as long as I can," Rin replied. "We don't appreciate sore losers; they're bad for business."

"Go right on ahead," Katsuro sneered. "Traveling all the way to this dump was the worst idea ever."

"You only say that because you were barely able to catch anything," Ken-Ichi muttered as he dusted off his pants. "Man, I can't wait to get back home and away from you, Katsuro."

"I can't wait to get away from you either, Ken-Ichi," Katsuro shot back. "I'm tired of listening to you whine. All you Uzumakis are so lame."

Naruto blinked in confusion. _Eh?_

"Uzumaki?" Obito pushed his orange mirrored shades up to rest on the top of his head and gazed down at Ken-Ichi with his one eye. "You're an Uzumaki?"

"Yeah," Ken-Ichi nodded slowly.

"Is he a relative of yours, Naruto?" Kiba asked.

Naruto shrugged, feeling even more dazed than he had just after he'd been punched.

Almost as one, Ken-Ichi, Katsuro, and Hayato turned their heads to stare at Naruto.

"_He's_ an Uzumaki?" Hayato sputtered from his safe spot on the sidelines.

"Bullshit," Katsuro laughed harshly. "All Uzumakis live in the Land of Whirlpools and _none_ of them have blond hair!"

"Well I'm an Uzumaki and I live in the Land of Fire," Naruto scowled. "Check my trainer information on my pokédex if you don't believe me."

"I've met pretty much all of my living relatives just once," Ken-Ichi said slowly. "But…my Aunt Kushina I've only seen a few pictures of. No one ever really talks about her and I just thought that she was dead…"

"My mom's not dead," Naruto frowned.

"Ah, the Uzumaki Runaway," Katsuro chuckled. "I remember hearing a little about that from my family. So, Ramen—"

"My name's Naruto!"

"—you're the spawn of that joke," Katsuro said. "How funny!"

"My mom's not a joke!" Naruto snarled and was almost mad enough to charge at the bigger, older boy and try to pummel him with his own fists.

"Of course she is," Katsuro said nastily. "But I'm done talking to you, little thief. I'm going home. Come on Hayato!" The teenage bully stalked off, pushing past Demon to bump Naruto as he walked on down the street. "Don't think that I'm going to forget about this," he growled lowly.

"Hey, wait up!" Hayato whined as he loped after his leader. "Weren't going to get something to eat first?"

"Well, that was…interesting," Obito muttered and looked down at Hinata. "Thanks for warning us about this situation."

The Hyuuga girl flushed and dropped her eyes to the dirt ground in embarrassment.

Naruto glared after the two boys until he felt Eve licking some of the blood off his chin. The gray eevee looked so sad when he gazed into her eyes and he sighed as his angry tension started draining away. When a gentle hand touched his shoulder he flinched a bit in surprise and found Rin standing next to him.

"Come on," the brown-haired woman said. "Let's go get you cleaned up."

* * *

><p>Demon lounged on the carpet of the Pokémon Center floor while Naruto glared at the video phone screen. Ash the houndoom sat nearby his master, who was chatting with the other Safari Zone guide as they sat on a couch. And Ken-Ichi, Naruto's mysterious relative, lingered against a nearby wall and watched the blond boy be frustrated.<p>

"The answering machine again!" Naruto huffed. "She should be home by now… I'm calling Professor Sarutobi's lab to see if the old man knows where she is."

_:I hate this bell!:_ Kitsune whined as she pawed at the black ribbon fastened around her neck, jingling the silver bell. _:It'll ruin all my illusions with its ringing. How am I supposed to escape now?:_

_ :You're not going to,:_ Demon snorted. _:I used to try and do that all the time and it never worked out for me. Nowadays I wonder why I even bothered. Hanging out with Naruto is much better than scrounging for a living out in the wilds.:_

_ :Shut up!:_ Kitsune snapped and bristled. _:I'm going to escape and I'm going to go home! I'll never accept life as a human's slave.:_

_ :You're going to go home?:_ Demon repeated dubiously. _:Do you know the way back to this home of yours?:_

_ :Not exactly… But it can't be too far! I was only stuck in that crate for two days. All I have to do is keep walking until I find familiar landmarks. I'll be home in no time,:_ she declared smugly. _:Maybe I'll even find another tribe of my kind that I can get directions from! I'll be home even faster then.:_

_:Will you now?:_ the houndoom drawled as he approached them. _:Silly pup, I don't think you realize how far away from home you really are.:_

_ :What do you know?:_ Kitsune jeered.

_:I know that you arrived in a shipment of foreign pokémon imported from across the ocean—a body of water vaster than any of us can imagine. The only way that you're going to get back home is aboard a human boat or airplane.:_ Ash tossed his horned head. _:Furthermore, you were brought here on accident. The Safari Zone didn't order any zorua like you. So not only are you far from home, you're the only one of your kind here.:_

Kitsune was struck dumb for a full minute.

_:…No. You're lying. I don't believe you!:_ The little black fox tossed her head angrily. _:You just want me to give up hope and succumb to that stupid boy's will!:_

_ :No, I just want you to understand the reality of your situation,:_ Ash snorted. _:Whether or not you decide to obey your trainer is entirely up to you.:_

The zorua panted with rage but couldn't seem to put together any response.

_:Calm down,:_ Demon sighed. _:I don't see why you're so upset about falling into the hands of a human. I didn't like it much either, but—:_

"_Where_ did you send my mom?" Naruto asked whoever was on the other end of the video phone's screen incredulously. "Where the heck is Uzu Town?"

"It's in Whirlpool Country," Ken-Ichi said. "It's where most of my family lives. I can take you there if you want."

Demon watched Naruto poke at the scab on his swollen lip and internally debate what he wanted to do. The boy quietly asked the person on the phone how long his mother would be away and the answer made him frown more. And then he sighed and nodded.

"Could you, please?" Naruto asked the older boy.

_Our next adventure,_ Demon thought. _Joy…_

* * *

><p>In a small town near the western-most border of the Land of Fire, the black-haired boy known as Sai accepted a voice-only call in the local Pokémon Center. He had worked hard to gain experience and train the monsters he had carefully collected and those that he had been given. He hoped that his performance so far would please his benefactor.<p>

"Uncle Danzou?" he said politely.

_"Your progress thus far has been more than acceptable,"_ the old man's voice rasped. _"And it is time to reward you. I have deposited a new pokémon into your account. Make good use of it."_

"I will," the boy promised, and the connection was cut.

Sai hung up the phone and moved to a computer terminal. He traced his hands over the six pokéballs attached to his belt before selecting one and feeding it into the slot. Then he looked up what his "uncle" had left for him and withdrew it.

The pokémon that appeared from the basic pokéball was black with red markings and blue eyes. It was small, scruffy, and fox-like. He flipped open his pokédex and thoroughly researched the creature while it studied him from its seat on the computer console.

"…I believe that you should serve me well," he remarked as he snapped the electronic device shut. "I will call you…Ink."

It stared at him intensely for a moment before activating its unique ability and wrapping itself in the guise of its new trainer, with a smirk being the only feature different between them.

Sai almost smiled.

"Yes, you will serve me well."

* * *

><p><strong>Appendix<strong>

_Naruto_: eevee (Eve; shiny), joltik (Mushi (insect)), tympole (Gamatatsu), litwick (Onibi (jack-o-lantern)), totodile (Gator), riolu (Rasen), snorunt (Flurry), zorua (Kitsune), ducklett

_Sasuke_: tynamo, purrloin, deino, pawniard, snivy, meinfoo, blitzle, eevee

_Sakura_: porygon, torchic, axew, solosis, cottonee, audino, blitzle, alomomola (Alo)

_Kiba_: eevee, riolu, smeargle, lillipup (x6)

_Shino_: eevee, venonat, dwebble, durant, sewaddle, venipede, joltik, karablast, shelmet, larvesta

_Hinata_: eevee, chikorita, pidove (female), minccino, emolga, audino, ducklett, woobat

_Shikamaru_: eevee, litwick, yamask (Osiris), deerling (x8; summer form)

_Chouji_: eevee, trubbish, vanillite, cubchoo, roggenrola, sandile, golett

_Ino_: eevee (x2), munna (x3), tepig, sigilyth, maractus, petilil, gothita

_Katsuro_: deino (Hellraiser), patrat, timburr, nidorino

_Hayato_: snivy, ferroseed, patrat, treecko, purrloin

_Ken-Ichi_: oshawott, frillish (male), panpour, mudkip, stunfisk, basculin (red), basculin (blue), eevee


End file.
